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Graphene acoustic plasmon resonator for ultrasensitive infrared spectroscopy

Nature Nanotechnology volume 14, pages 313–319 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

One of the fundamental hurdles in plasmonics is the trade-off between electromagnetic field confinement and the coupling efficiency with free-space light, a consequence of the large momentum mismatch between the excitation source and plasmonic modes. Acoustic plasmons in graphene, in particular, have an extreme level of field confinement, as well as an extreme momentum mismatch. Here, we show that this fundamental compromise can be overcome and demonstrate a graphene acoustic plasmon resonator with nearly perfect absorption (94%) of incident mid-infrared light. This high efficiency is achieved by utilizing a two-stage coupling scheme: free-space light coupled to conventional graphene plasmons, which then couple to ultraconfined acoustic plasmons. To realize this scheme, we transfer unpatterned large-area graphene onto template-stripped ultraflat metal ribbons. A monolithically integrated optical spacer and a reflector further boost the enhancement. We show that graphene acoustic plasmons allow ultrasensitive measurements of absorption bands and surface phonon modes in ångström-thick protein and SiO2 layers, respectively. Our acoustic plasmon resonator platform is scalable and can harness the ultimate level of light–matter interactions for potential applications including spectroscopy, sensing, metasurfaces and optoelectronics.

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Fig. 1: Coupling mechanisms.
Fig. 2: Plasmonic absorption enhancement by an integrated reflector.
Fig. 3: Fabrication process and resonator structure.
Fig. 4: Gap dependence of dispersion and absorption.
Fig. 5: Acoustic-plasmon-mediated light–matter interactions.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through an MRSEC grant (to I.-H.L., T.L. and S.-H.O.), ECCS 1809723 (to I.-H.L., S.-H.O. and T.L.) and ECCS 1610333 (to D.Y. and S.-H.O.). T.L. and S.-H.O. also acknowledge support from the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) at the University of Minnesota. S.-H.O. further acknowledges support from the Sanford P. Bordeau Endowed Chair at the University of Minnesota. The authors thank S. Kim and M. Jo for sharing silk fibroin samples. Device fabrication was performed at the Minnesota Nanofabrication Center at the University of Minnesota, which receives partial support from the NSF through the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI). Electron microscopy measurements were performed at the Characterization Facility, which has received capital equipment from NSF MRSEC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    In-Ho Lee, Daehan Yoo, Tony Low & Sang-Hyun Oh

  2. IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York, NY, USA

    Phaedon Avouris

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  1. In-Ho Lee
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Contributions

I.-H.L. and S.-H.O. conceived the idea. I.-H.L. performed simulations, device fabrication and characterization. D.Y. performed SEM and AFM characterization. I.-H.L., P.A., T.L. and S.-H.O. performed theoretical analysis. All authors analysed the data and wrote the paper together.

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Correspondence to Sang-Hyun Oh.

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Lee, IH., Yoo, D., Avouris, P. et al. Graphene acoustic plasmon resonator for ultrasensitive infrared spectroscopy. Nat. Nanotechnol. 14, 313–319 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-019-0363-8

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