Strong Plasmon Reflection at Nanometer-Size Gaps in Monolayer Graphene on SiC

Chen, Jianing; Nesterov, Maxim L.; Nikitin, Alexey Yu.; Thongrattanasiri, Sukosin; Alonso-González, Pablo; Slipchenko, Tetiana M.; Speck, Florian; Ostler, Markus; Seyller, Thomas; Crassee, Iris; Koppens, Frank H. L.; Martin-Moreno, Luis; García de Abajo, F. Javier; Kuzmenko, Alexey; Hillenbrand, Rainer

doi:10.1021/nl403622t

Scientific article

English

Strong Plasmon Reflection at Nanometer-Size Gaps in Monolayer Graphene on SiC

Contributors

Chen, Jianing; Nesterov, Maxim L.; Nikitin, Alexey Yu.; Thongrattanasiri, Sukosin; Alonso-González, Pablo; Slipchenko, Tetiana M.; Speck, Florian; Ostler, Markus; Seyller, Thomas; Crassee, Iris; Koppens, Frank H. L.; Martin-Moreno, Luis; García de Abajo, F. Javier; Kuzmenko, Alexey

; Hillenbrand, Rainer

Published in

Nano letters, vol. 13, no. 12, p. 6210-6215

Publication date

2013-11-07

First online date

2013-11-07

Abstract

We employ tip-enhanced infrared near-field microscopy to study the plasmonic properties of epitaxial quasi-free-standing monolayer graphene on silicon carbide. The near-field images reveal propagating graphene plasmons, as well as a strong plasmon reflection at gaps in the graphene layer, which appear at the steps between the SiC terraces. When the step height is around 1.5 nm, which is two orders of magnitude smaller than the plasmon wavelength, the reflection signal reaches 20% of its value at graphene edges, and it approaches 50% for step heights as small as 5 nm. This intriguing observation is corroborated by numerical simulations and explained by the accumulation of a line charge at the graphene termination. The associated electromagnetic fields at the graphene termination decay within a few nanometers, thus preventing efficient plasmon transmission across nanoscale gaps. Our work suggests that plasmon propagation in graphene-based circuits can be tailored using extremely compact nanostructures, such as ultranarrow gaps. It also demonstrates that tip-enhanced near-field microscopy is a powerful contactless tool to examine nanoscale defects in graphene.

UNIGE affiliation entities

Faculté des sciences / Section de physique / Département de physique de la matière quantique

UNIGE research groups

Groupe Kuzmenko

Citation (ISO format)

CHEN, Jianing et al. Strong Plasmon Reflection at Nanometer-Size Gaps in Monolayer Graphene on SiC. In: Nano letters, 2013, vol. 13, n° 12, p. 6210–6215. doi: 10.1021/nl403622t

Article (Submitted version)

Article (Published version)

Identifiers

PID : unige:158338
DOI : 10.1021/nl403622t
PMID : 24188400

Additional URL for this publication

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/nl403622t

Journal ISSN

1530-6984

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Strong Plasmon Reflection at Nanometer-Size Gaps in Monolayer Graphene on SiC

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Published in

Publication date

First online date

Abstract

UNIGE affiliation entities

UNIGE research groups

Citation (ISO format)

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Additional URL for this publication

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