Graphene plasmonics for light trapping and absorption engineering

TL;DR

This paper explores how graphene plasmonics can significantly enhance light absorption in optoelectronic devices, potentially leading to more efficient photodetectors and solar cells across various spectral ranges.

Contribution

It introduces the use of doped, nanostructured graphene for localized plasmon excitation to improve optical absorption in surrounding materials, a novel approach in plasmonic device engineering.

Findings

Localized plasmons in doped graphene can boost absorption by tens of times.

Graphene plasmonics can be tuned via doping for spectral selectivity.

Potential to revolutionize solar cells and photodetectors in IR and THz ranges.

Abstract

Plasmonics can be used to improve absorption in optoelectronic devices and has been intensively studied for solar cells and photodetectors. Graphene has recently emerged as a powerful plasmonic material. It shows significantly less losses compared to traditional plasmonic materials such as gold and silver and its plasmons can be tuned by changing the Fermi energy with chemical or electrical doping. Here we propose the usage of graphene plasmonics for light trapping in optoelectronic devices and show that the excitation of localized plasmons in doped, nanostructured graphene can enhance optical absorption in its surrounding media including both bulky and two-dimensional materials by tens of times, which may lead to a new generation of highly efficient, spectrally selective photodetectors in mid-infrared and THz ranges. The proposed concept could even revolutionize the field of plasmonic solar cells if graphene plasmons in the visible and near-infrared are realized.