Controlling solar radiation forces with graphene in plasmonic metasurface

TL;DR

This paper presents an electrically tunable plasmonic metasurface using graphene to control solar radiation pressure, enabling applications like solar sailing and optical tweezers.

Contribution

It introduces a novel graphene-based, tunable metasurface design that actively controls optical forces in the visible spectrum.

Findings

High efficiency in anomalous reflection.

Tunable optical forces via Fermi level adjustment.

Potential for applications in solar sailing and optical manipulation.

Abstract

Controlling and harvesting solar radiation pressure is a significant challenge, however, there are few potential solutions, which are suitable for several key applications. In this study, an electrically tunable plasmonic metasurface is designed for the visible spectrum. Moreover, the normal and the tangential optical forces acting on the metasurface are calculated. Whilst presenting high efficiency in the anomalous reflection, the designed active metasurface provides tunability of optical forces acting on the metasurface. The metasurface is composed of tapered silver cells embedded on top of the graphene layer with 20 layers of graphene sheets. Hence, by tuning the Fermi level of graphene sheets, the transferred momentum to the metasurface can be controlled. Our results can provide a suitable platform for optical force control desired in tunable radiation pressure harvesting, micro vehicles, solar sailing and optical tweezers.