No Arabic abstract
We study the effect of two metallic slabs on the collective dynamics of electrons in graphene positioned between the two slabs. We show that if the slabs are perfect conductors the plasmons of graphene display a linear dispersion relation. The velocity of these acoustic plasmons crucially depends on the distance between the two metal gates and the graphene sheet. In the case of generic slabs, the dispersion relation of graphene plasmons is much more complicated but we find that acoustic plasmons can still be obtained under specific conditions.
An acoustic plasmon is predicted to occur, in addition to the conventional two-dimensional (2D) plasmon, as the collective motion of a system of two types of electronic carriers coexisting in the very same 2D band of extrinsic (doped or gated) graphene. The origin of this novel mode resides in the strong anisotropy that is present in the graphene band structure near the Dirac point. This anisotropy allows for the coexistence of carriers moving with two distinct Fermi velocities along the Gamma-K direction, which leads to two modes of collective oscillation: one mode in which the two types of electrons oscillate in phase with one another [this is the conventional 2D graphene plasmon, which at long wavelengths (q->0) has the same dispersion, q^1/2, as the conventional 2D plasmon of a 2D free electron gas], and the other mode found here corresponding to a low-frequency acoustic oscillation [whose energy exhibits at long wavelengths a linear dependence on the 2D wavenumber q] in which the two types of electrons oscillate out of phase. If this prediction is confirmed experimentally, it will represent the first realization of acoustic plasmons originated in the collective motion of a system of two types of carriers coexisting within the very same band.
A quantitative understanding of the electromagnetic response of materials is essential for the precise engineering of maximal, versatile, and controllable light--matter interactions. Material surfaces, in particular, are prominent platforms for enhancing electromagnetic interactions and for tailoring chemical processes. However, at the deep nanoscale, the electromagnetic response of electron systems is significantly impacted by quantum surface-response at material interfaces, which is challenging to probe using standard optical techniques. Here, we show how ultra-confined acoustic graphene plasmons (AGPs) in graphene--dielectric--metal structures can be used to probe the quantum surface-response functions of nearby metals, here encoded through the so-called Feibelman $d$-parameters. Based on our theoretical formalism, we introduce a concrete proposal for experimentally inferring the low-frequency quantum response of metals from quantum shifts of the AGPs dispersion, and demonstrate that the high field confinement of AGPs can resolve intrinsically quantum mechanical electronic length-scales with subnanometer resolution. Our findings reveal a promising scheme to probe the quantum response of metals, and further suggest the utilization of AGPs as plasmon rulers with r{a}ngstr{o}m-scale accuracy.
We study the transient phenomena appearing in a subgap region of the double quantum dot coupled in series between the superconducting and normal metallic leads, focusing on the development of the superconducting proximity effect. For the uncorrelated nanostructure we derive explicit expressions of the time-dependent occupancies in both quantum dots, charge currents, and electron pairing induced on individual dots and between them. We show that the initial configurations substantially affect the dynamical processes, in which the in-gap bound states emerge upon coupling the double quantum dot to superconducting reservoir. In particular, the superconducting proximity effect would be temporarily blocked whenever the quantum dots are initially singly occupied. Such {it triplet}/{it Andreev blockade} has been recently reported experimentally for double quantum dots embedded in the Josephson [D. Bouman et al., Phys. Rev. B 102, 220505 (2020)] and Andreev [P. Zhang et al., arXiv:2102.03283 (2021)] junctions. We also address the role of correlation effects within the lowest-order decoupling scheme and by the time-dependent numerical renormalization group calculations. Competition of the repulsive Coulomb interactions with the superconducting proximity effect leads to renormalization of the in-gap quasiparticles, speeding up the quantum oscillations and narrowing a region of transient phenomena, whereas the dynamical Andreev blockade is well pronounced in the weak inter-dot coupling limit. We propose feasible methods for detecting the characteristic time-scales that could be observable by the Andreev spectroscopy.
The linear conductance spectrum of a metallic graphene junction formed by interconnecting two gapless graphene nanoribbons is calculated. A strong conductance suppression appears in the vicinity of the Dirac point. We found that such a conductance suppression arises from the antiresonance effect associated with the edge state localized at the zigzag-edged shoulder of the junction. The conductance valley due to the antiresonance is rather robust in the presence of the impurity and vacancy scattering. And the center of the conductance valley can be readily tuned by an electric field exerted on the wider nanoribbon.
In this paper we show that graphene surface plasmons can be excited when an electromagnetic wave packet impinges on a single metal slit covered with graphene. The excitation of the plasmons localized over the slit is revealed by characteristic peaks in the absorption spectrum. It is shown that the position of the peaks can be tuned either by the graphene doping level or by the dielectric function of the material filling the slit. The whole system forms the basis for a plasmonic sensor when the slit is filled with an analyte.