Graphene-plasmon polaritons: From fundamental properties to potential applications

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in graphene plasmonics, highlighting its unique optical properties, dispersion relations, excitation mechanisms, and potential applications in nanophotonics, modulators, and sensors.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamental properties and recent progress in graphene plasmonics, including theoretical foundations and practical applications.

Findings

Dispersion relation of graphene-plasmon polaritons derived

Excitation mechanisms for graphene plasmons discussed

Potential applications in modulators and sensors highlighted

Abstract

With the unique possibilities for controlling light in nanoscale devices, graphene plasmonics has opened new perspectives to the nanophotonics community with potential applications in metamaterials, modulators, photodetectors, and sensors. This paper briefly reviews the recent exciting progress in graphene plasmonics. We begin with a general description for optical properties of graphene, particularly focusing on the dispersion of graphene-plasmon polaritons. The dispersion relation of graphene-plasmon polaritons of spatially extended graphene is expressed in terms of the local response limit with intraband contribution. With this theoretical foundation of graphene-plasmon polaritons, we then discuss recent exciting progress, paying specific attention to the following topics: excitation of graphene plasmon polaritons, electron-phonon interactions in graphene on polar substrates, and tunable graphene plasmonics with applications in modulators and sensors. Finally, we seek to address some of the apparent challenges and promising perspectives of graphene plasmonics.