Graphene-coated holey metal films: tunable molecular sensing by surface plasmon resonance

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how graphene-coated holey gold films can enhance surface plasmon resonances, enabling tunable molecular sensing by exploiting charge carrier coupling between graphene and gold surface plasmons.

Contribution

It introduces a novel graphene-coated holey gold film structure that enhances and tunes surface plasmon resonances for improved molecular sensing capabilities.

Findings

Main plasmon resonance at ~1.5 microns

Coupling between graphene charge carriers and gold plasmons enhances resonance

Architecture offers potential for sensitive molecular detection

Abstract

We report on the enhancement of surface plasmon resonances in a holey bidimensional grating of subwavelength size, drilled in a gold thin film coated by a graphene sheet. The enhancement originates from the coupling between charge carriers in graphene and gold surface plasmons. The main plasmon resonance peak is located around 1.5 microns. A lower constraint on the gold-induced doping concentration of graphene is specified and the interest of this architecture for molecular sensing is also highlighted.