Acoustic plasmons in extrinsic free-standing graphene

TL;DR

This paper predicts the existence of an acoustic plasmon mode in extrinsic graphene caused by anisotropic electronic band structure, which could be experimentally observed as a new collective excitation in the same electronic band.

Contribution

It introduces the theoretical prediction of an acoustic plasmon mode in doped graphene due to anisotropy and coexistence of carriers with different Fermi velocities within the same band.

Findings

Prediction of an acoustic plasmon mode in extrinsic graphene

Identification of anisotropy as the origin of the mode

Potential experimental confirmation of a new collective excitation

Abstract

An acoustic plasmon is predicted to occur, in addition to the conventional two-dimensional (2D) plasmon, as the collective motion of a system of two types of electronic carriers coexisting in the very same 2D band of extrinsic (doped or gated) graphene. The origin of this novel mode resides in the strong anisotropy that is present in the graphene band structure near the Dirac point. This anisotropy allows for the coexistence of carriers moving with two distinct Fermi velocities along the Gamma-K direction, which leads to two modes of collective oscillation: one mode in which the two types of electrons oscillate in phase with one another [this is the conventional 2D graphene plasmon, which at long wavelengths (q->0) has the same dispersion, q^1/2, as the conventional 2D plasmon of a 2D free electron gas], and the other mode found here corresponding to a low-frequency acoustic oscillation [whose energy exhibits at long wavelengths a linear dependence on the 2D wavenumber q] in which the two types of electrons oscillate out of phase. If this prediction is confirmed experimentally, it will represent the first realization of acoustic plasmons originated in the collective motion of a system of two types of carriers coexisting within the very same band.