No Arabic abstract
Graphene offers a possibility for actively controlling plasmon confinement and propagation by tailoring its spatial conductivity pattern. However, implementation of this concept has been hampered because uncontrollable plasmon reflection is easily induced by inhomogeneous dielectric environment. In this work, we demonstrate full electrical control of plasmon reflection/transmission at electronic boundaries induced by a zinc-oxide-based dual gate, which is designed to minimize the dielectric modulation. Using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, we show that the plasmon reflection can be varied continuously with the carrier density difference between the adjacent regions. By utilizing this functionality, we show the ability to control size, position, and frequency of plasmon cavities. Our approach can be applied to various types of plasmonic devices, paving the way for implementing a programmable plasmonic circuit.
We present an electrically switchable graphene terahertz (THz) modulator with a tunable-by-design optical bandwidth and we exploit it to compensate the cavity dispersion of a quantum cascade laser (QCL). Electrostatic gating is achieved by a metal-grating used as a gate electrode, with an HfO2/AlOx gate dielectric on top. This is patterned on a polyimide layer, which acts as a quarter wave resonance cavity, coupled with an Au reflector underneath. We get 90% modulation depth of the intensity, combined with a 20 kHz electrical bandwidth in the 1.9 _ 2.7 THz range. We then integrate our modulator with a multimode THz QCL. By adjusting the modulator operational bandwidth, we demonstrate that the graphene modulator can partially compensates the QCL cavity dispersion, resulting in an integrated laser behaving as a stable frequency comb over 35% of the laser operational range, with 98 equidistant optical modes and with a spectral coverage of ~ 1.2 THz. This has significant potential for frontier applications in the terahertz, as tunable transformation-optics devices, active photonic components, adaptive and quantum optics, and as a metrological tool for spectroscopy at THz frequencies.
We report a THz reflectarray metasurface which uses graphene as active element to achieve beam steering, shaping and broadband phase modulation. This is based on the creation of a voltage controlled reconfigurable phase hologram, which can impart different reflection angles and phases to an incident beam, replacing bulky and fragile rotating mirrors used for terahertz imaging. This can also find applications in other regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, paving the way to versatile optical devices including light radars, adaptive optics, electro-optical modulators and screens.
Transistor structures comprising graphene and sub-wavelength metal gratings hold a great promise for plasmon-enhanced terahertz detection. Despite considerable theoretical effort, little experimental evidence for terahertz plasmons in such structures was found so far. Here, we report an experimental study of plasmons in graphene-insulator-grating structures using Fourier transform spectroscopy in 5-10 THz range. The plasmon resonance is clearly visible above the Drude absorption background even in chemical vapor deposited (CVD) graphene with low carrier mobility $sim 10^3$ cm$^2$/(V s). We argue that plasmon lifetime is weakly sensistive to scattering by grain boundaries and macoscopic defects which limits the mobility of CVD samples. Upon placing the grating in close proximity to graphene, the plasmon field becomes tightly bound below the metal stripes, while the resonant frequency is determined by the stripe width but not by grating period. Our results open the prospects of large-area commercially available graphene for resonant terahertz detectors.
Graphene plasmons are of remarkable features that make graphene plasmon elements promising for applications to integrated photonic devices. The fabrication of graphene plasmon components and control over plasmon propagating are of fundamental important. Through near-field plasmon imaging, we demonstrate controllable modifying of the reflection of graphene plasmon at boundaries etched by ion beams. Moreover, by varying ion dose at a proper value, nature like reflection boundary can be obtained. We also investigate the influence of ion beam incident angle on plasmon reflection. To illustrate the application of ion beam etching, a simple graphene wedge-shape plasmon structure is fabricated and performs excellently, proving this technology as a simple and efficient tool for controlling graphene plasmons.
Electrostatic gating and optical pumping schemes enable efficient time modulation of graphenes free carrier density, or Drude weight. We develop a theory for plasmon propagation in graphene under temporal modulation. When the modulation is on the timescale of the plasmonic period, we show that it is possible to create a backwards-propagating or standing plasmon wave and to amplify plasmons. The theoretical models show very good agreement with direct Maxwell simulations.