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Large-area nanoengineering of graphene corrugations for visible-frequency graphene plasmons

Nature Nanotechnology volume 17, pages 61–66 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Quantum confinement of the charge carriers of graphene is an effective way to engineer its properties. This is commonly realized through physical edges that are associated with the deterioration of mobility and strong suppression of plasmon resonances. Here, we demonstrate a simple, large-area, edge-free nanostructuring technique, based on amplifying random nanoscale structural corrugations to a level where they efficiently confine charge carriers, without inducing significant inter-valley scattering. This soft confinement allows the low-loss lateral ultra-confinement of graphene plasmons, scaling up their resonance frequency from the native terahertz to the commercially relevant visible range. Visible graphene plasmons localized into nanocorrugations mediate much stronger light–matter interactions (Raman enhancement) than previously achieved with graphene, enabling the detection of specific molecules from femtomolar solutions or ambient air. Moreover, nanocorrugated graphene sheets also support propagating visible plasmon modes, as revealed by scanning near-field optical microscopy observation of their interference patterns.

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Fig. 1: Strongly nanocorrugated graphene sheets.
Fig. 2: Electronic structure of graphene nanocorrugations.
Fig. 3: Large Raman enhancement on nanocorrugated graphene sheets.
Fig. 4: Localized and propagating plasmons in nanocorrugated graphene.

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Source data are provided with this paper. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the NanoFab2D ERC Starting Grant and the Graphene Flagship, H2020 GrapheneCore3 project no. 881603. L.T. acknowledges support from the NKFIH OTKA grant K 132869 and the Élvonal grant KKP 138144. P.N.-I. acknowledges the support of the ‘Lendület’ programme of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, LP2017-9/2017. L.H. and B.M. acknowledge the use of the computational resources provided by the Consortium des Équipements de Calcul Intensif (CÉCI), funded by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique de Belgique (F.R.S.-FNRS) under Grant No. 2.5020.11 and by the Walloon Region and the support of the ARC research project No. 19/24-102 SURFASCOPE. G.D. and P.V. acknowledge support from the Bolyai Fellowship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. We acknowledge valuable discussions with P. Lambin and F. J. G. de Abajo.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, Centre for Energy Research, Budapest, Hungary

    Gergely Dobrik, Péter Nemes-Incze, Péter Süle, Péter Vancsó, Gábor Piszter, Miklós Menyhárd, Benjámin Kalas, Péter Petrik & Levente Tapasztó

  2. Department of Physics, Namur Institute of Structured Matter, University of Namur, Namur, Belgium

    Bruno Majérus & Luc Henrard

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Contributions

L.T. conceived and designed the experiments. G.D. and P.N.-I. performed the sample preparation and the Raman and SNOM measurements. G.D. performed the STM and AFM investigations. P.S. performed molecular dynamics, geometry optimization and DFT LDOS calculations. B.M., P.V. and L.H. performed the optical calculations. P.P. and B.K. performed the spectroscopic ellipsometry investigations. M.M. measured the EELS spectra. G.P. and G.D. conducted the reflectance spectroscopy measurements. L.T. wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Levente Tapasztó.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Nanotechnology thanks Yousoo Kim and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Tunneling spectra of graphene nanocorrugations.

Additional tunneling spectra acquired under UHV conditions near the top of high aspect ratio (hmax/R > 0.4) graphene nanocorrugations. Inset shows the dI/dV spectra acquired on quasi-flat areas of the sample. b) DFT calculated local density of stated at the apex of a graphene nanocorrugation with hmax/R ~ 0.4.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–20 and Discussion.

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Dobrik, G., Nemes-Incze, P., Majérus, B. et al. Large-area nanoengineering of graphene corrugations for visible-frequency graphene plasmons. Nat. Nanotechnol. 17, 61–66 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-021-01007-x

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