Graphene plasmons were predicted to possess ultra-strong field confinement and very low damping at the same time, enabling new classes of devices for deep subwavelength metamaterials, single-photon nonlinearities, extraordinarily strong light-matter interactions and nano-optoelectronic switches. While all of these great prospects require low damping, thus far strong plasmon damping was observed, with both impurity scattering and many-body effects in graphene proposed as possible explanations. With the advent of van der Waals heterostructures, new methods have been developed to integrate graphene with other atomically flat materials. In this letter we exploit near-field microscopy to image propagating plasmons in high quality graphene encapsulated between two films of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). We determine dispersion and particularly plasmon damping in real space. We find unprecedented low plasmon damping combined with strong field confinement, and identify the main damping channels as intrinsic thermal phonons in the graphene and dielectric losses in the h-BN. The observation and in-depth understanding of low plasmon damping is the key for the development of graphene nano-photonic and nano-optoelectronic devices.

Highly confined low-loss plasmons in graphene-boron nitride heterostructures

A perfect ultra-narrow band infrared metamaterial absorber based on the all-metal-grating structure is proposed. The absorber presents a perfect absorption efficiency of over 98% with an ultra-narrow bandwidth of 0.66 nm at normal incidence. This high efficient absorption is contributed to the surface plasmon resonance. Moreover, the surface plasmon resonance-induced strong surface electric field enhancement is favorable for application in biosensing system. When operated as a plasmonic refractive index sensor, the ultra-narrow band absorber has a wavelength sensitivity 2400 nm/RIU and an ultra-high figure of merit 3640, which are much better than those of most reported similar plasmonic sensors. Besides, we also comprehensively investigate the influences of structural parameters on the sensing properties. Due to the simplicity of its geometry structure and its easiness to be fabricated, the proposed high figure of merit and sensitivity sensor indicates a competitive candidate for applications in sensing or detecting fields.

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Infrared Plasmonic Refractive Index Sensor with Ultra-High Figure of Merit Based on the Optimized All-Metal Grating.

Modern electronics based on semiconductors is meeting the fundamental speed limit caused by the interconnect delay and large heat generation when the sizes of components reach nanometer scale. Photons as a carrier of the information are superior to electrons in bandwidth, density, speed, and dissipation. More over, photons could carry intensity, polarization, phase, and frequency information which could break through the limitation of binary system as in electronic devices. But due to the diffraction limitation, the photonic components and devices can not be fabricated small enough to be integrated densely. Surface plasmon polariton is quanta of collective oscillations of free electrons excited by photons in metal nanostrucrures, which offers a promising way to manipulate light at the nanoscale and to realize the miniaturization of photonic devices. Hence, plasmonic circuits and devices have been proposed for some time as a potential strategy for advancing semiconductor-based computing beyond the fundamental performance limitations of electronic devices, as epitomized by Moore's law. A variety of individual plasmonic nanodevices have been intensively studied recently, but the crucial and necessary step to enable nanophotonic circuits for future information technology, namely cascade logics integrated on-chip, has not been achieved. Here we demonstrate that a nanophotonic binary logic NOR gate can be realized by cascading plasmonic OR and NOT gates in four-terminal nanowire networks. We explain the operating principle for the device based on quantum dot luminescence imaging, which reveal the interferences for different logic functions between propagating plasmon wave packets in the nanowire network in great detail. Since the NOR gate is logic complete, i.e. any Boolean logic gate can be constructed from it, our results could have a key role in defining a viable path for the development of novel subwavelength optical processor architectures.

Cascaded Logic Gates in Nanophotonic Plasmon Networks

An absorptive metasurface based on film-coupled colloidal silver nanocubes is demonstrated. The metasurfaces are fabricated using simple dip-coating methods and can be deposited over large areas and on arbitrarily shaped objects. The surfaces show nearly complete absorption, good off-angle performance, and the resonance can be tuned from the visible to the near-infrared.

Large-Area Metasurface Perfect Absorbers from Visible to Near-Infrared.

Broadband electromagnetic wave absorbers are highly desirable in numerous applications such as solar-energy harvesting, thermo-photovoltaics, and photon detection. The aim to efficiently achieve ultrathin broadband absorbers with high-yield and low-cost fabrication process has long been pursued. Here, we theoretically propose and experimentally demonstrate a unique broadband plasmonic-metamaterial absorber by utilizing a sub-10 nm meta-surface film structure to replace the precisely designed metamaterial crystal in the common metal–dielectric–metal absorbers. The unique ultrathin meta-surface can be automatically obtained during the metal film formation process. Spectral bandwidth with absorbance above 80% is up to 396 nm, where the full absorption width at half-maximum is about 92%. The average value of absorbance across the whole spectral range of 370–880 nm reaches 83%. These super absorption properties can be attributed to the particle plasmon resonances and plasmon near-field coupling by the automati...

Automatically acquired broadband plasmonic-metamaterial black absorber during the metallic film-formation.

Ultra-broadband perfect solar absorber by an ultra-thin refractory titanium nitride meta-surface

We present an ultra-broadband perfect absorber composed of metal-insulator composite multilayer (MICM) stacks by placing the insulator-metal-insulator (IMI) grating on the metal-insulator-metal (MIM) film stacks. The absorber shows over 90% absorption spanning between 570 nm and 3539 nm, with an average absorption of 97% under normal incidence. The ultra-broadband perfect absorption characteristics are achieved by the synergy of guided mode resonances (GMRs), localized surface plasmons (LSPs), propagating surface plasmons (PSPs), and cavity modes. The polarization insensitivity is demonstrated by analyzing the absorption performance over arbitrary polarization angles. The ultra-broadband absorption remains more than 80% over a wide incident angle up to 50°, for both transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) modes. The ultra-broadband perfect absorber has tremendous potential for various applications, such as solar thermal energy harvesting, thermoelectrics, and imaging.

Ultra-broadband perfect absorber utilizing refractory materials in metal-insulator composite multilayer stacks

Near-unity, full-spectrum, nanoscale solar absorbers and near-perfect blackbody emitters

We present a method to theoretically achieve multispectral ultra-narrowband near-unity absorption in metal structure with deep-subwavelength plasmonic nanocavities (i.e., volumes < λ3/20 000) for high-quality sensing. The concept is based on the combined excitation of multiple plasmon resonances and high optical field confinement by an array of hexagonal non-close-packed cross-shape nanocavities on an opaque metal film. A multispectral plasmonic nano-sensor with high refractive index sensitivity (538 nm/RIU) and figure of merit (58) in the optical region is obtained with the minimum bandwidth of 8 nm, which offers new perspectives for achieving ultra-compact efficient biosensors.

Guiqiang Liu

Papers

Automatically acquired broadband plasmonic-metamaterial black absorber during the metallic film-formation.

Ultra-broadband perfect solar absorber by an ultra-thin refractory titanium nitride meta-surface

Ultra-broadband perfect absorber utilizing refractory materials in metal-insulator composite multilayer stacks

Near-unity, full-spectrum, nanoscale solar absorbers and near-perfect blackbody emitters

λ3/20000 plasmonic nanocavities with multispectral ultra-narrowband absorption for high-quality sensing