Graphene plasmonics: A platform for strong light-matter interaction

TL;DR

This paper explores graphene plasmons as a highly tunable platform for strong light-matter interactions, predicting significant enhancements in quantum emitter decay rates and enabling advanced quantum optical devices.

Contribution

It demonstrates the potential of graphene plasmons for strong light-matter coupling, with predictions of high decay rates, large Rabi splitting, and enhanced extinction cross sections.

Findings

Unprecedented high decay rates of quantum emitters near graphene.

Large vacuum Rabi splitting and Purcell factors predicted.

Extinction cross sections exceeding geometrical area.

Abstract

Graphene plasmons provide a suitable alternative to noble-metal plasmons because they exhibit much larger confinement and relatively long propagation distances, with the advantage of being highly tunable via electrostatic gating. We report strong light- matter interaction assisted by graphene plasmons, and in particular, we predict unprecedented high decay rates of quantum emitters in the proximity of a carbon sheet, large vacuum Rabi splitting and Purcell factors, and extinction cross sections exceeding the geometrical area in graphene ribbons and nanometer-sized disks. Our results provide the basis for the emerging and potentially far-reaching field of graphene plasmonics, offering an ideal platform for cavity quantum electrodynamics and supporting the possibility of single-molecule, single-plasmon devices.