Optical Response Of Graphene Research Articles

Graphene: an exotic condensed matter and its impact on technology

Graphene is a (2 + 1)-dimensional quantum electrodynamic system. The carriers have a vanishing mass and a relativistic velocity of 106 m/s, obeying charge-conjugate parity time symmetry. Graphene exhibits the Klein paradox, due to which, through spatial confinement, a bandgap can be opened in zigzag graphene nanoribbons for logic applications. The high Debye temperature of 2800 K ensures that phonons are frozen out and lattice scattering is suppressed at 300 K. The perfect crystallinity ensures that defect/impurity scattering is suppressed. The two together give very high electrical conductivity and electric mobility. This permits a current density of 108 A/cm2, about 100 times greater than that in copper. Single-layer graphene has a thermal conductivity of 3000–5000 (W/m)/K at 300 K, but graphite has K = 2000 (W/m)/K. This may open up few-layer graphene applications in thermal management of nanoelectronics. The half-integer quantum Hall effect and non-zero Berry phase have been verified in the laboratory. These magneto-transport properties are a result of the exceptional topology of the graphene band structure. Ballistic transport observable up to 300 K makes graphene an ideal replacement for silicon (Si) electronics. The optical response of graphene is determined by the fine-structure constant over a wide band of the visible spectrum, and hence, it is ideal for high-speed optical modulators. This paper describes a commercially significant process for synthesizing large-area fold-free and defect-free graphene.

Near-field infrared microscopy of graphene on metal substrate

Graphene plasmons, collective oscillation modes of electrons in graphene, have recently attracted intense attention in both the fundamental researches and the applications because of their strong field confinement, low loss and excellent tunability. The dispersion of graphene plasmons can be significantly modified in the system of graphene on metal substrate, in which the screening of the long-range part of the electron-electron interactions by nearby metal can lead to many novel quantum effects, such as acoustic plasmons, quantum nonlocal effects and renormalization of band structure. Scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) which consists of a laser coupled to the tip of an atomic force microscopy (AFM), is an effective technique to directly probe plasmons in two-dimensional materials including graphene, and the graphene plasmons can be observed visually by real-space imaging. But so far the detailed s-SNOM studies of graphene/metal system have not been reported. One potential challenge is that the near-field response of highly conductive metal substrate may partially or entirely obscure that of graphene, making it difficult to further explore graphene by using s-SNOM. Here in this paper, we report the direct observation of near-field optical response of graphene in a graphene/metal system excited by a mid-infrared quantum cascade laser. From a close examination of the data of graphene/Cu compared with that of h-BN/Cu, we are able to identify experimental features due to the near-field response of graphene. Surprisingly, two completely different behaviors are observed in the s-SNOM data for different graphene samples on Cu substrates with similar surface step geometries. These results suggest that the near-field response of graphene/metal system is not completely dominated by the metal substrate, and that two completely different near-field response behaviors of graphene may be attributed to their intrinsic properties affected by metal substrates themselves rather than surface step geometries of metal substrate. In addition, following this approach it is possible to distinguish the near-field optical responses of graphene from that of graphene/metal system. Our work reveals the clear signatures of the near-field optical response of graphene on metal substrate, which provides the foundation for probing plasmons in these systems by using the s-SNOM and understanding many novel quantum phenomena therein.

Recent Progress on Graphene-Functionalized Metasurfaces for Tunable Phase and Polarization Control.

The combination of graphene and a metasurface holds great promise for dynamic manipulation of the electromagnetic wave from low terahertz to mid-infrared. The optical response of graphene is significantly enhanced by the highly-localized fields in the meta-atoms, and the characteristics of meta-atoms can in turn be modulated in a large dynamic range through electrical doping of graphene. Graphene metasurfaces are initially focused on intensity modulation as modulators and tunable absorbers. In this paper, we review the recent progress of graphene metasurfaces for active control of the phase and the polarization. The related applications involve, but are not limited to lenses with tunable intensity or focal length, dynamic beam scanning, wave plates with tunable frequency, switchable polarizers, and real-time generation of an arbitrary polarization state, all by tuning the gate voltage of graphene. The review is concluded with a discussion of the existing challenges and the personal perspective of future directions.

Energy losses and transition radiation in graphene traversed by a fast charged particle under oblique incidence

We perform fully relativistic calculations of the energy loss channels for a charged particle traversing a single layer of graphene under oblique incidence in a setting pertinent to a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM), where we distinguish between the energy deposited in graphene in the form of electronic excitations (Ohmic loss) and the energy emitted in the far field in the form of transition radiation (TR). Our formulation of the problem uses a definition of two in-plane, dielectric functions of graphene, which describe the longitudinal and transverse excitation processes that contribute separately to those two energy loss channels. Using several models for the electric conductivity of graphene as the input in those dielectric functions enables us to discuss the effects of oblique incidence on several processes in a broad range of frequencies, from the terahertz (THz) to the ultraviolet (UV). In particular, at the THz frequencies, we demonstrate that the nonlocal effect in the graphene's conductivity is not important in the retarded regime, and we show that the longitudinal and transverse contributions to the emitted TR spectra exhibit strongly anisotropic angular patterns that are readily distinguishable in a cathodoluminescence measurement in a STEM. Moreover, we explore the possibility of exciting the so-called transverse mode in the optical response of graphene at the mid-infrared (MIR) range of frequencies by means of a fast charged particle under oblique incidence. Finally, we demonstrate that, aside from the usual high-energy peaks in the longitudinal contribution to the Ohmic energy loss in the MIR to the UV frequency range, there may arise strongly directional features in the in-plane distribution of the transverse contribution to the Ohmic energy loss for an oblique trajectory, which could be possibly observed via momentum- and angle-resolved electron energy loss spectroscopy of graphene in STEM.

Actively Tunable Terahertz Switches Based on Subwavelength Graphene Waveguide.

As a new field of optical communication technology, on-chip graphene devices are of great interest due to their active tunability and subwavelength scale. In this paper, we systematically investigate optical switches at frequency of 30 THz, including Y-branch (1 × 2), X-branch (2 × 2), single-input three-output (1 × 3), two-input three-output (2 × 3), and two-input four-output (2 × 4) switches. In these devices, a graphene monolayer is stacked on the top of a PMMA (poly methyl methacrylate methacrylic acid) dielectric layer. The optical response of graphene can be electrically manipulated; therefore, the state of each channel can be switched ON and OFF. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the transmission direction can be well manipulated in these devices. In addition, the proposed devices possess advantages of appropriate ON/OFF ratios, indicating the good performance of graphene in terahertz switching. These devices provide a new route toward terahertz optical switching.

Infrared Reflectance Study of the Graphene/Semi-Insulating 6H-SiC(0001) Heterostructure

The optical response of graphene on 6H-SiC was investigated by means of IR-reflectance measurements. Thereby, the anisotropy of the substrate is considered and its influence was studied by performing measurements with s- and p-polarized light. The anisotropy causes a splitting of the reststrahlen band in p-polarization, but does not affect spectra recorded with s-polarization. In both cases a thin film approximation was used to simulate the reflectance spectra. A model consisting of SiC, graphene and air enables the extraction of the graphene layer count.

Transmittance and Absorption Properties of Graphene Multilayer Quasiperiodic Structure: Period-Doubling case

ABSTRACTGraphene is a two dimensional material of special interest due to its unusual electronic, mechanical, chemical, optical among other properties, which suggest a wide range of applications in optoelectronics, computer, ecology, etc. The study of the optical properties of graphene is important due to its potential applications such as ultrafast photonics, optical filters, composite materials, photovoltaics and energy storage device. In this work we study the transmission and absorption properties of a quasi-regular multilayer dielectric-graphene-dielectric system. The multilayer structure is built on the quasi-regular Period-Doubling (PD) sequence. The optical response of graphene takes into account intra-band and inter-band transitions. We use the transfer-matrix method to calculate the transmission and absorption spectra. It is obtained a strong dependence on the number of layers in the system, the width of dielectric media and the optical contrast. Furthermore, we calculate the spectra for both transverse magnetic (TM) and transverse electric (TE) polarization in the infrared region.

Polarization dependence of graphene transient optical response: interplay between incident direction and anisotropic distribution of nonequilibrium carriers

The transient optical properties of graphene on a dielectric substrate rely on both the direction of light incidence and anisotropic distribution of excited carriers in graphene. Here, we experimentally and theoretically studied the polarization dependence of transient optical reflection and transmission caused by the interplay between the above two factors. The interplay between the two factors resulted in diverse polarization dependence characteristics and could shift the converting incident angle for inverse polarization dependence in transient optical response. For large angles of incidence, transient optical transmission exhibited a stronger polarization dependence and no sign reversal, compared with transient optical reflection. Our findings can be useful for designing high-speed photonic devices with controllable transient optical response of graphene.

Perturbation theory for graphene-integrated waveguides: Cubic nonlinearity and third-harmonic generation

We present perturbation theory for analysis of generic third-order nonlinear processes in graphene-integrated photonic structures. The optical response of graphene is treated as the nonlinear boundary condition in Maxwell's equations. The derived models are applied for analysis of third-harmonic generation in a graphene-coated dielectric microfiber. An efficiency of up to a few percent is predicted when using subpicosecond pump pulses with energies of the order of 0.1 nJ in a submillimeter-long fiber when operating near the resonance of the graphene nonlinear conductivity $\ensuremath{\hbar}\ensuremath{\omega}=(2/3){E}_{F}$.

グラフェンのテラヘルツオプトエレクトロニクス

Graphene has attracted considerable attention due to its extraordinary carrier transport, optoelectronic, and plasmonic properties originated from its gapless and linear energy spectra enabling various functionalities with extremely high quantum efficiencies that could never be obtained in any existing materials. This paper reviews recent advances in graphene optoelectronics particularly focused on the physics and device functionalities in the terahertz (THz) electromagnetic spectral range. Optical response of graphene is characterized by its optical conductivity and nonequilibrium carrier energy relaxation dynamics, enabling amplification of THz radiation when it is optically or electrically pumped. Current-injection THz lasing has been realized very recently. Graphene plasmon polaritons can greatly enhance the THz light and graphene matter interaction, enabling giant enhancement in detector responsivity as well as amplifier/laser gain. Graphene-based van der Waals heterostructures could give more interesting and energy-efficient functionalities.

Optical response of graphene under intense terahertz fields

Optical responses of graphene in the presence of intense circularly and linearly polarized terahertz fields are investigated based on the Floquet theory. We examine the energy spectrum and density of states. It is found that gaps open in the quasi-energy spectrum due to the single-photon/multi-photon resonances. These quasi-energy gaps are pronounced at small momentum, but decrease dramatically with the increase of momentum and finally tend to be closed when the momentum is large enough. Due to the contribution from the states at large momentum, the gaps in the density of states are effectively closed, in contrast to the prediction in the previous work by Oka and Aoki [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 79}, 081406(R) (2009)]. We also investigate the optical conductivity for different field strengths and Fermi energies, and show the main features of the dynamical Franz-Keldysh effect in graphene. It is discovered that the optical conductivity exhibits a multi-step-like structure due to the sideband-modulated optical transition. It is also shown that dips appear at frequencies being the integer numbers of the applied terahertz field frequency in the case of low Fermi energy, originating from the quasi-energy gaps at small momentums. Moreover, under a circularly polarized terahertz field, we predict peaks in the middle of the "steps" and peaks induced by the contribution from the states around zero momentum in the optical conductivity.

Excitonic Effects on the Optical Response of Graphene and Bilayer Graphene

We present first-principles calculations of many-electron effects on the optical response of graphene, bilayer graphene, and graphite employing the GW-Bethe Salpeter equation approach. We find that resonant excitons are formed in these two-dimensional semimetals. The resonant excitons give rise to a prominent peak in the absorption spectrum near 4.5 eV with a different line shape and significantly redshifted peak position from those of an absorption peak arising from interband transitions in an independent quasiparticle picture. In the infrared regime, our calculated optical absorbance per graphene layer is approximately a constant, 2.4%, in agreement with recent experiments; additional low frequency features are found for bilayer graphene because of band structure effects.

Rabi Oscillations in Landau-Quantized Graphene

We investigate the relation between the canonical model of quantum optics, the Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonian and Dirac fermions in quantizing magnetic field. We demonstrate that Rabi oscillations are observable in the optical response of graphene, providing us with a transparent picture about the structure of optical transitions. While the longitudinal conductivity reveals chaotic Rabi oscillations, the Hall component measures coherent ones. This opens up the possibility of investigating a microscopic model of a few quantum objects in a macroscopic experiment with tunable parameters.