High-speed femtosecond laser plasmonic lithography and reduction of graphene oxide for anisotropic photoresponse

TLDR: A team of Chinese researchers has used ultrafast femtosecond laser plasmonic lithography (FPL) to create subwavelength grates on GO films 140 nanometres thick, which has, for the first, demonstrated the practical use of FPL for producing structures on two-dimensional films of GO for use in novel devices for applications in optoelectronics.

Abstract: Micro/nanoprocessing of graphene surfaces has attracted significant interest for both science and applications due to its effective modulation of material properties, which, however, is usually restricted by the disadvantages of the current fabrication methods. Here, by exploiting cylindrical focusing of a femtosecond laser on graphene oxide (GO) films, we successfully produce uniform subwavelength grating structures at high speed along with a simultaneous in situ photoreduction process. Strikingly, the well-defined structures feature orientations parallel to the laser polarization and significant robustness against distinct perturbations. The proposed model and simulations reveal that the structure formation is based on the transverse electric (TE) surface plasmons triggered by the gradient reduction of the GO film from its surface to the interior, which eventually results in interference intensity fringes and spatially periodic interactions. Further experiments prove that such a regular structured surface can cause enhanced optical absorption (>20%) and an anisotropic photoresponse (~0.46 ratio) for the reduced GO film. Our work not only provides new insights into understanding the laser-GO interaction but also lays a solid foundation for practical usage of femtosecond laser plasmonic lithography, with the prospect of expansion to other two-dimensional materials for novel device applications.