Plasmonics has established itself as a branch of physics which promises to revolutionize data processing, improve photovoltaics, increase sensitivity of bio-detection. A widespread use of plasmonic devices is notably hindered (in addition to high los
ses) by the absence of stable and inexpensive metal films suitable for plasmonic applications. This may seem surprising given the number of metal compounds to choose from. Unfortunately, most of them either exhibit a strong damping of surface plasmons or easily oxidize and corrode. To this end, there has been continuous search for alternative plasmonic materials that are, unlike gold, the current metal of choice in plasmonics, compatible with complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology. Here we show that copper and silver protected by graphene are viable candidates. Copper films covered with one to a few graphene layers show excellent plasmonics characteristics surpassing those of gold films. They can be used to fabricate plasmonic devices and survive for at least a year, even in wet and corroding conditions. As a proof of concept, we use the graphene-protected copper to demonstrate dielectric loaded plasmonic waveguides and test sensitivity of surface plasmon resonances. Our results are likely to initiate a wide use of graphene-protected plasmonics.
Cross-section and analyzing power data from 197 MeV $(p,p)$ scattering and longitudinal and transverse form factors for electron scattering to low lying states in $^{10}$B have been analyzed as tests of the structure of the nuclear states when they a
re described using a no-core $(0+2)hbaromega$ shell model. While the results obtained from the shell model clearly show the need of other elements, three-body forces in particular, to explain the observed spectrum, the reasonable level of agreement obtained in the analyses of the scattering data suggest that the wavefunctions from our shell model using only a two-body potential are credible. Any changes to the wavefunctions with the introduction of three-body forces in the shell model Hamiltonian should therefore be relatively minor.
Differential cross sections and analyzing powers for elastic scattering from, and for inelastic proton scattering to a set of $2^+_1$ states in, ${}^{12}$C, ${}^{20}$Ne, ${}^{24}$Mg, ${}^{28}$Si and ${}^{40}$Ca, and for a set of energies between 35 t
o 250 MeV, have been analyzed. A $g$-folding model has been used to determine optical potentials and a microscopic distorted wave approximation taken to analyze the inelastic data. The effective nucleon-nucleon interactions used to specify the optical potentials have also been used as the transition operators in the inelastic scattering processes. Shell and large space Hartree-Fock models of structure have been used to describe the nuclear states.
