Complete light absorption in graphene-metamaterial corrugated structures

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that by using shallow corrugated negative permittivity metamaterials, it is possible to achieve complete light absorption in graphene sheets through surface-plasmon polariton excitation, independent of graphene engineering.

Contribution

It introduces a novel hybrid system design that enables 100% light absorption in graphene using surface-plasmon polaritons in metamaterials with shallow corrugations.

Findings

Achieves near-perfect light absorption in graphene.

Absorption is tunable via metamaterial plasma frequency.

No need for graphene property engineering.

Abstract

We show that surface-plasmon polaritons excited in negative permittivity metamaterials having shallow periodic surface corrugation profiles can be explored to push the absorption of single and continuous sheets of graphene up to 100%. In the relaxation regime, the position of the plasmonic resonances of the hybrid system is determined by the plasma frequency of the metamaterial, allowing the frequency range for enhanced absorption to be set without the need of engineering graphene.