All-carbon approach to inducing electrical and optical anisotropy in graphene

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that interfacing graphene with anisotropic carbon structures like nanoporous graphene and nanoribbons induces electrical and optical anisotropy, preserving graphene's key properties and enabling new optoelectronic applications.

Contribution

It introduces a method to induce anisotropy in graphene through heterostructures with anisotropic carbon materials, maintaining its electronic and optical advantages.

Findings

Induced optical anisotropy suitable for long-wavelength polarimetry

Electrical anisotropy enhances graphene photothermoelectric detectors

Preservation of graphene's charge transport and optical absorption

Abstract

Owing to its array of unique properties, graphene is a promising material for a wide variety of applications. Being two-dimensional, the properties of graphene are also easily tuned via proximity to other materials. In this work, we investigate the possibility of inducing electrical and optical anisotropy in graphene by interfacing it with other anisotropic carbon systems, including nanoporous graphene and arrays of graphene nanoribbons. We find that such materials do indeed induce such anisotropy in graphene, while also preserving the unique properties offered by graphene's Dirac band structure, namely its superior charge transport and long-wavelength optical absorption. The optical anisotropy makes such heterostructures interesting for their use in applications related to long-wavelength polarimetry, while the electrical anisotropy may be valuable for enhancing the performance of graphene photothermoelectric detectors.