Optical Dichroism by Nonlinear Excitations in Graphene Nanoribbons

TL;DR

This paper investigates nonlinear wave excitations in graphene nanoribbons, revealing polarization-dependent optical properties and proposing experimental methods to detect soliton waves based on their scaling with ribbon width.

Contribution

It introduces a gauge model to study nonlinear excitations in graphene nanoribbons and explores their optical interactions, highlighting polarization effects and experimental identification strategies.

Findings

Nanoribbons are transparent when photon polarization aligns with their length.

Soliton energies scale with nanoribbon width.

Polarization influences soliton-photon interactions.

Abstract

The honeycomb carbon structure of graphene and nanotubes has a dynamics which can give rise to a spectrum. This can be excited via the interaction with an external electromagnetic field. In this work, non-linear waves on graphene and nanotubes associated with the carbon structure are investigated using a gauge model. Typical energies are estimated and there scaling with the nanoribbon width investigated. Furthermore, the soliton-photon interaction depends on the incident photon polarization. In particular, we find that the nanoribbon is transparent when the polarization is along the largest length. Relying on the scaling with the width, we suggest a way to experimentally identify the soliton waves in nanoribbons.