Plasmon polaritons in nanostructured graphene

Graphene has attracted considerable attention due to its unique electronic and optical properties. When graphene is electrically/chemically doped, it can support surface plasmon where the light propagates along the surface with a very short wavelength and an extremely small mode volume. The optical properties of graphene can be tuned by electrical gating, thus proving a promising way to realize a tunable plasmonic material. We firstly investigate the performance of bends and splitters in graphene nanoribbon waveguides, and show that bends and splitters do not induce any additional loss provided that the nanoribbon width is sub-wavelength. Then we experimentally demonstrate the excitation of graphene plasmon polaritons in a continuous graphene monolayer resting on a two-dimensional subwavelength silicon grating. The silicon grating is realized by a nanosphere lithography technique with a self-assembled nanosphere array as a template. Guided graphene plasmon polaritons excited in the graphene monolayer on the diffractive grating are observed in transmission spectrum measured at midinfrared frequencies.