Nanofocusing of acoustic graphene plasmon polaritons for enhancing mid-infrared molecular fingerprints

Mid-infrared (mid-IR) optical spectroscopy of molecules is of large interest in physics, chemistry, and biology. However, probing nanometric volumes of molecules is challenging because of the strong mismatch of their mid-infrared absorption and scattering cross-sections with the free-space wavelengt...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Voronin, Kirill V., Aseginolaza, Unai, Hillenbrand, Rainer, Volkov, Valentyn S., Alonso-González, Pablo, Nikitin, Alexey Y.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/218510
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/218510
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Graphene plasmon
Molecular sensing
Nanofocusing
Descripción
Sumario:Mid-infrared (mid-IR) optical spectroscopy of molecules is of large interest in physics, chemistry, and biology. However, probing nanometric volumes of molecules is challenging because of the strong mismatch of their mid-infrared absorption and scattering cross-sections with the free-space wavelength. We suggest overcoming this difficulty by nanofocusing acoustic graphene plasmon polaritons (AGPs) – oscillations of Dirac charge carriers coupled to electromagnetic fields with extremely small wavelengths – using a taper formed by a graphene sheet above a metallic surface. We demonstrate that due to the appreciable field enhancement and mode volume reduction, the nanofocused AGPs can efficiently sense molecular fingerprints in nanometric volumes. We illustrate a possible realistic sensing sсenario based on AGP interferometry performed with a near-field microscope. Our results can open new avenues for designing tiny sensors based on graphene and other 2D polaritonic materials.