Strong Plasmon Reflection at Nanometer-Size Gaps in Monolayer Graphene on SiC

We employ tip-enhanced infrared near-field microscopy to study the plasmonic properties of epitaxial quasi-free-standing monolayer graphene on silicon carbide. The near-field images reveal propagating graphene plasmons, as well as a strong plasmon reflection at gaps in the graphene layer, which appe...

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Veröffentlicht in:Nano letters Jg. 13; H. 12; S. 6210 - 6215
Hauptverfasser: Chen, Jianing, Nesterov, Maxim L, Nikitin, Alexey Yu, Thongrattanasiri, Sukosin, Alonso-González, Pablo, Slipchenko, Tetiana M, Speck, Florian, Ostler, Markus, Seyller, Thomas, Crassee, Iris, Koppens, Frank H. L, Martin-Moreno, Luis, García de Abajo, F. Javier, Kuzmenko, Alexey B, Hillenbrand, Rainer
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Washington, DC American Chemical Society 11.12.2013
Schlagworte:
Carbon Compounds, Inorganic - chemistry
Collective excitations (including excitons, polarons, plasmons and other charge-density excitations)
Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties
Condensed matter: structure, mechanical and thermal properties
Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology
Electromagnetic Fields
Electronic structure and electrical properties of surfaces, interfaces, thin films and low-dimensional structures
Exact sciences and technology
Fullerenes and related materials; diamonds, graphite
Graphene
Graphite - chemistry
Low-dimensional structures (superlattices, quantum well structures, multilayers): structure, and nonelectronic properties
Materials science
Microscopy
Microscopy, Atomic Force
Monolayers
Nanostructure
Nanostructures - chemistry
Physics
Plasmons
Reflection
Silicon carbide
Silicon Compounds - chemistry
Specific materials
Surface and interface electron states
Surface Plasmon Resonance
Surface Properties
Surfaces and interfaces; thin films and whiskers (structure and nonelectronic properties)
plasmon reflection
SiC
Graphene
near-field microscopy
s-SNOM
graphene plasmons
Near infrared radiation
Nanometer scale
Silicon carbide
Epitaxial layers
Epitaxy
Digital simulation
Monolayers
Plasmons
Nanostructures
ISSN:1530-6984, 1530-6992, 1530-6992
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Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:We employ tip-enhanced infrared near-field microscopy to study the plasmonic properties of epitaxial quasi-free-standing monolayer graphene on silicon carbide. The near-field images reveal propagating graphene plasmons, as well as a strong plasmon reflection at gaps in the graphene layer, which appear at the steps between the SiC terraces. When the step height is around 1.5 nm, which is two orders of magnitude smaller than the plasmon wavelength, the reflection signal reaches 20% of its value at graphene edges, and it approaches 50% for step heights as small as 5 nm. This intriguing observation is corroborated by numerical simulations and explained by the accumulation of a line charge at the graphene termination. The associated electromagnetic fields at the graphene termination decay within a few nanometers, thus preventing efficient plasmon transmission across nanoscale gaps. Our work suggests that plasmon propagation in graphene-based circuits can be tailored using extremely compact nanostructures, such as ultranarrow gaps. It also demonstrates that tip-enhanced near-field microscopy is a powerful contactless tool to examine nanoscale defects in graphene.
Bibliographie:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:1530-6984
1530-6992
1530-6992
DOI:10.1021/nl403622t