Journal of Optics: Special issue on graphene nanophotonics
nanoGUNE’s researcher Alexey Nikitin, in collaboration with researchers from the Imperial College (London) and the University of Zaragoza (Spain), has participated as a “guest editor” in the Special Issue on Graphene Nanophotonics published by Journal of Optics. The Special Issue focuses on the emerging Graphene nanophotonics research area, where topics on nanophotonics and the several extraordinary properties of graphene are combined.
The results presented in the publication are an overview of the activity currently being conducted in the field. As it is mentioned in the editorial of the Special Issue, “apart from being the thinnest existing material, graphene is very attractive for photonics due to its extreme flexibility, high mobility and the possibility of controlling its carrier concentration (and hence its electromagnetic response) via external gate voltage”. The editorial underlines graphene’s potential for innovative technological applications, such as its already shown capabilities in areas like photodetection, photovoltaics, lasing, etc., as well as other challenges such as complementing (or replacing) the existing semiconductor/metallic photonic platforms.
Lab talk
One of the articles of the Special Issue, entitled “Analytical solution for the diffraction of an electromagnetic wave by a graphene grating”, is a collaboration between nanoGUNE’s researcher Alexey Nikitin, member of the nanooptics group, and researchers from the Materials Science Institute of Aragón and the Department of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Zaragoza (Spain). A feature about the paper has been published at the “Lab Talk” section of Journal of Optics. In short, the research conducts a comprehensive theoretical analysis of the diffraction of an electromagnetic wave at a periodically structured graphene sheet. An interesting result is the fact that reducing the electron losses inside the graphene sheet increases their ability to be involved in plasmonic oscillations, which results in more photons being absorbed. As expressed in the Lab Talk, “the authors believe that this demonstration can help to fully exploit the potential of graphene in a variety of applications like tunable ultrathin subwavelength antennas, oscillators, amplifiers, photodetectors, etc.”.
Original publication:
T. M. Slipchenko, M. L. Nesterov, L. Martin-Moreno, and A. Yu Nikitin. Analytical solution for the diffraction of an electromagnetic wave by a graphene grating. Journal of Optics 15, 114008 (doi: 10.1088/2040-8978/15/11/114008)