Former group member Dr. Farhad Karimi, graduate student Shuva Mitra, former group member Sina Soleimanikahnoj, and Prof. Irena Knezevic coauthored the recent publication “Plasmon-enhanced optical nonlinearity in graphene nanomeshes” in Physical Review B. [Publisher’s link]
Abstract: Using the density-matrix formalism, we show that graphene nanomeshes (GNMs)—graphene sheets patterned with antidots—have large plasmon-enhanced nonlinear optical response. GNMs can be designed to behave as quasi-one-dimensional plasmonic crystals in which plasmons with large propagation lengths are efficiently excited. The associated third-order Kerr and third-harmonic-generation susceptibility can be as high as 10-7 and 10-9 m2/V2, respectively, over the mid-to-near-infrared frequency range. Furthermore, carrier-density tuning in GNMs can flip the propagation direction of plasmonic waves and enables bidirectional switching of optical signals.