Erratum: Phonon-Mediated Interlayer Conductance in Twisted Graphene Bilayers [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 236604 (2012)].

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.236604.

Twisted Two-Dimensional Material Stacks for Polarization Optics.

The ability to control the light polarization state is critically important for diverse applications in information processing, telecommunications, and spectroscopy. Here, we propose that a stack of anisotropic van der Waals materials can facilitate the building of optical elements with Jones matrices of unitary, Hermitian, non-normal, singular, degenerate, and defective classes. We show that the twisted stack with electrostatic control can function as arbitrary-birefringent wave-plate or arbitrary polarizer with tunable degree of non-normality, which in turn give access to plethora of polarization transformers including rotators, pseudorotators, symmetric and ambidextrous polarizers. Moreover, we discuss an electrostatic-reconfigurable stack which can be tuned to operate as four different polarizers and be used for Stokes polarimetry.

Intrinsically ultrastrong plasmon-exciton interactions in crystallized films of carbon nanotubes.

In cavity quantum electrodynamics, optical emitters that are strongly coupled to cavities give rise to polaritons with characteristics of both the emitters and the cavity excitations. We show that carbon nanotubes can be crystallized into chip-scale, two-dimensionally ordered films and that this material enables intrinsically ultrastrong emitter-cavity interactions: Rather than interacting with external cavities, nanotube excitons couple to the near-infrared plasmon resonances of the nanotubes themselves. Our polycrystalline nanotube films have a hexagonal crystal structure, ∼25-nm domains, and a 1.74-nm lattice constant. With this extremely high nanotube density and nearly ideal plasmon-exciton spatial overlap, plasmon-exciton coupling strengths reach 0.5 eV, which is 75% of the bare exciton energy and a near record for room-temperature ultrastrong coupling. Crystallized nanotube films represent a milestone in nanomaterials assembly and provide a compelling foundation for high-ampacity conductors, low-power optical switches, and tunable optical antennas.

Polaritons in layered two-dimensional materials.

In recent years, enhanced light-matter interactions through a plethora of dipole-type polaritonic excitations have been observed in two-dimensional (2D) layered materials. In graphene, electrically tunable and highly confined plasmon-polaritons were predicted and observed, opening up opportunities for optoelectronics, bio-sensing and other mid-infrared applications. In hexagonal boron nitride, low-loss infrared-active phonon-polaritons exhibit hyperbolic behaviour for some frequencies, allowing for ray-like propagation exhibiting high quality factors and hyperlensing effects. In transition metal dichalcogenides, reduced screening in the 2D limit leads to optically prominent excitons with large binding energy, with these polaritonic modes having been recently observed with scanning near-field optical microscopy. Here, we review recent progress in state-of-the-art experiments, and survey the vast library of polaritonic modes in 2D materials, their optical spectral properties, figures of merit and application space. Taken together, the emerging field of 2D material polaritonics and their hybrids provide enticing avenues for manipulating light-matter interactions across the visible, infrared to terahertz spectral ranges, with new optical control beyond what can be achieved using traditional bulk materials.

A Platform for Analysis of Nanoscale Liquids with an Array of Sensor Devices Based on Two-Dimensional Material.

Analysis of nanoscale liquids, including wetting and flow phenomena, is a scientific challenge with far reaching implications for industrial technologies. We report the conception, development, and application of an integrated platform for the experimental characterization of liquids at the nanometer scale. The platform combines the functionalities of a two-dimensional electronic array of sensor devices with in situ application of highly sensitive optical microspectroscopy and atomic force microscopy. We demonstrate the performance capabilities of the platform with an embodiment based on an array of optically transparent graphene sensors. The application of electronic and optical sensing in the platform allows for differentiating between liquids electronically, for determining a liquid's molecular fingerprint, and for monitoring surface wetting dynamics in real time. In order to explore the platform's sensitivity limits, we record topographies and optical spectra of individual, spatially isolated sessile oil emulsion droplets having volumes of less than ten attoliters. The results demonstrate that integrated measurement functionalities based on two-dimensional materials have the potential to push lab-on-chip based analysis from the microscale to the nanoscale.

Strong and Broadly Tunable Plasmon Resonances in Thick Films of Aligned Carbon Nanotubes.

Low-dimensional plasmonic materials can function as high quality terahertz and infrared antennas at deep subwavelength scales. Despite these antennas' strong coupling to electromagnetic fields, there is a pressing need to further strengthen their absorption. We address this problem by fabricating thick films of aligned, uniformly sized semiconducting carbon nanotubes and showing that their plasmon resonances are strong, narrow, and broadly tunable. With thicknesses ranging from 25 to 250 nm, our films exhibit peak attenuation reaching 70%, ensemble quality factors reaching 9, and electrostatically tunable peak frequencies by a factor of 2.3. Excellent nanotube alignment leads to the attenuation being 99% linearly polarized along the nanotube axis. Increasing the film thickness blueshifts the plasmon resonators down to peak wavelengths as low as 1.4 µm, a new near-infrared regime in which they can both overlap the S11 nanotube exciton energy and access the technologically important infrared telecom band.

Coherent Plasmon and Phonon-Plasmon Resonances in Carbon Nanotubes.

Carbon nanotubes provide a rare access point into the plasmon physics of one-dimensional electronic systems. By assembling purified nanotubes into uniformly sized arrays, we show that they support coherent plasmon resonances, that these plasmons couple to nanotube and substrate phonons, and that the resulting phonon-plasmon resonances have quality factors as high as 10. Because nanotube plasmons intensely strengthen electromagnetic fields and light-matter interactions, they provide a compelling platform for surface-enhanced spectroscopy and tunable optical devices at deep-subwavelength scales.

High-frequency, scaled graphene transistors on diamond-like carbon.

Owing to its high carrier mobility and saturation velocity, graphene has attracted enormous attention in recent years. In particular, high-performance graphene transistors for radio-frequency (r.f.) applications are of great interest. Synthesis of large-scale graphene sheets of high quality and at low cost has been demonstrated using chemical vapour deposition (CVD) methods. However, very few studies have been performed on the scaling behaviour of transistors made from CVD graphene for r.f. applications, which hold great potential for commercialization. Here we report the systematic study of top-gated CVD-graphene r.f. transistors with gate lengths scaled down to 40 nm, the shortest gate length demonstrated on graphene r.f. devices. The CVD graphene was grown on copper film and transferred to a wafer of diamond-like carbon. Cut-off frequencies as high as 155 GHz have been obtained for the 40-nm transistors, and the cut-off frequency was found to scale as 1/(gate length). Furthermore, we studied graphene r.f. transistors at cryogenic temperatures. Unlike conventional semiconductor devices where low-temperature performance is hampered by carrier freeze-out effects, the r.f. performance of our graphene devices exhibits little temperature dependence down to 4.3 K, providing a much larger operation window than is available for conventional devices.

Power Dissipation and Electrical Breakdown in Black Phosphorus.

We report operating temperatures and heating coefficients measured in a multilayer black phosphorus device as a function of injected electrical power. By combining micro-Raman spectroscopy and electrical transport measurements, we have observed a linear temperature increase up to 600 K at a power dissipation rate of 0.896 K µm(3)/mW. By further increasing the bias voltage, we determined the threshold power and temperature for electrical breakdown and analyzed the fracture in the black phosphorus layer that caused the device failure by means of scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. The results will benefit the research and development of electronics and optoelectronics based on novel two-dimensional materials.

Plasmon-plasmon hybridization and bandwidth enhancement in nanostructured graphene.

Graphene plasmonic structures with long-range layering periodicity are presented. Resonance energy scaling with the number of graphene layers involved in plasmonic excitation allows these structures to support multiple plasmonic modes that couple and hybridize due to their physical proximity. Hybridized states exhibit bandwidth enhancements of 100-200% compared to unhybridized modes, and resonance energies deviate from what is usually observed in coupled plasmonic systems. Origins of this behavior are discussed, and experimental observations are computationally modeled. This work is a precursor and template for the study of plasmonic hybridization in other two-dimensional material systems with layering periodicity.

Hot spot dynamics in carbon nanotube array devices.

We report on the dynamics of spatial temperature distributions in aligned semiconducting carbon nanotube array devices with submicrometer channel lengths. By using high-resolution optical microscopy in combination with electrical transport measurements, we observe under steady state bias conditions the emergence of time-variable, local temperature maxima with dimensions below 300 nm, and temperatures above 400 K. On the basis of time domain cross-correlation analysis, we investigate how the intensity fluctuations of the thermal radiation patterns are correlated with the overall device current. The analysis reveals the interdependence of electrical current fluctuations and time-variable hot spot formation that limits the overall device performance and, ultimately, may cause device degradation. The findings have implications for the future development of carbon nanotube-based technologies.

Tunable Light-Matter Interaction and the Role of Hyperbolicity in Graphene-hBN System.

Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is a natural hyperbolic material, which can also accommodate highly dispersive surface phonon-polariton modes. In this paper, we examine theoretically the mid-infrared optical properties of graphene-hBN heterostructures derived from their coupled plasmon-phonon modes. We find that the graphene plasmon couples differently with the phonons of the two Reststrahlen bands, owing to their different hyperbolicity. This also leads to distinctively different interaction between an external quantum emitter and the plasmon-phonon modes in the two bands, leading to substantial modification of its spectrum. The coupling to graphene plasmons allows for additional gate tunability in the Purcell factor and narrow dips in its emission spectra.

Black phosphorus photodetector for multispectral, high-resolution imaging.

Black phosphorus is a layered semiconductor that is intensely researched in view of applications in optoelectronics. In this letter, we investigate a multilayer black phosphorus photodetector that is capable of acquiring high-contrast (V > 0.9) images both in the visible (λVIS = 532 nm) as well as in the infrared (λIR = 1550 nm) spectral regime. In a first step, by using photocurrent microscopy, we map the active area of the device and we characterize responsivity and gain. In a second step, by deploying the black phosphorus device as a point-like detector in a confocal microsope setup, we acquire diffraction-limited optical images with submicron resolution. The results demonstrate the usefulness of black phosphorus as an optoelectronic material for hyperspectral imaging applications.

Tunable phonon-induced transparency in bilayer graphene nanoribbons.

In the phenomenon of plasmon-induced transparency, which is a classical analogue of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in atomic gases, the coherent interference between two plasmon modes results in an optical transparency window in a broad absorption spectrum. With the requirement of contrasting lifetimes, typically one of the plasmon modes involved is a dark mode that has limited coupling to the electromagnetic radiation and possesses relatively longer lifetime. Plasmon-induced transparency not only leads to light transmission at otherwise opaque frequency regions but also results in the slowing of light group velocity and enhanced optical nonlinearity. In this article, we report an analogous behavior, denoted as phonon-induced transparency (PIT), in AB-stacked bilayer graphene nanoribbons. Here, light absorption due to the plasmon excitation is suppressed in a narrow window due to the coupling with the infrared active Γ-point optical phonon, whose function here is similar to that of the dark plasmon mode in the plasmon-induced transparency. We further show that PIT in bilayer graphene is actively tunable by electrostatic gating and estimate a maximum slow light factor of around 500 at the phonon frequency of 1580 cm(-1), based on the measured spectra. Our demonstration opens an avenue for the exploration of few-photon nonlinear optics and slow light in this novel two-dimensional material.

Graphene plasmon enhanced vibrational sensing of surface-adsorbed layers.

We characterize the influence of graphene nanoribbon plasmon excitation on the vibrational spectra of surface-absorbed polymers. As the detuning between the graphene plasmon frequency and a vibrational frequency of the polymer decreases, the vibrational peak intensity first increases and is then transformed into a region of narrow optical transparency as the frequencies overlap. Examples of this are provided by the carbonyl vibration in thin films of poly(methyl methacrylate) and polyvinylpyrrolidone. The signal depth of the plasmon-induced transparency is found to be 5 times larger than that of light attenuated by the carbonyl vibration alone. The plasmon-vibrational mode coupling and the resulting fields are analyzed using both a phenomenological model of electromagnetically coupled oscillators and finite-difference time-domain simulations. It is shown that this coupling and the resulting absorption enhancement can be understood in terms of near-field electromagnetic interactions.

Novel midinfrared plasmonic properties of bilayer graphene.

We study the midinfrared plasmonic response in Bernal-stacked bilayer graphene. Unlike its monolayer counterpart, bilayer graphene accommodates optically active phonon modes and a resonant interband transition at infrared frequencies. They strongly modify the plasmonic properties of bilayer graphene, leading to Fano-type resonances, giant plasmonic enhancement of infrared phonon absorption, a narrow window of optical transparency, and a new plasmonic mode at higher energy than that of the classical plasmon.

Plasmons and screening in monolayer and multilayer black phosphorus.

Black phosphorus exhibits a high degree of band anisotropy. However, we find that its in-plane static screening remains relatively isotropic for momenta relevant to elastic long-range scattering processes. On the other hand, the collective electronic excitations in the system exhibit a strong anisotropy. Band nonparabolicity, due to interband couplings, leads to a plasmon frequency which scales as nß, where n is the carrier concentration, and ß<1/2. Screening and charge distribution in the out-of-plane direction are also studied using a nonlinear Thomas-Fermi model.

Increased responsivity of suspended graphene photodetectors.

The responsivity of graphene photodetectors depends critically on the elevated temperature of the electronic subsystem upon photoexcitation. We investigate the role of the substrate in providing cooling pathways for photoexcited carriers under ambient conditions by partially suspending few-layer graphene over a trench. Through photocurrent microscopy, we observe p-n junctions near the supported/suspended interfaces that produce photothermoelectric currents. Most importantly, we find the photocurrent in suspended p-n junctions to be an order of magnitude larger than in supported structures. This enhancement is attributed to the elimination of a dominant electronic cooling channel via the surface phonons of the polar substrate. Our work documents this mechanism of energy exchange between graphene and its environment, and it points to the importance of dielectric engineering for future improved graphene photodetectors.

Planar hyperbolic polaritons in 2D van der Waals materials.

Anisotropic planar polaritons - hybrid electromagnetic modes mediated by phonons, plasmons, or excitons - in biaxial two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals crystals have attracted significant attention due to their fundamental physics and potential nanophotonic applications. In this Perspective, we review the properties of planar hyperbolic polaritons and the variety of methods that can be used to experimentally tune them. We argue that such natural, planar hyperbolic media should be fairly common in biaxial and uniaxial 2D and 1D van der Waals crystals, and identify the untapped opportunities they could enable for functional (i.e. ferromagnetic, ferroelectric, and piezoelectric) polaritons. Lastly, we provide our perspectives on the technological applications of such planar hyperbolic polaritons.

Infrared spectroscopy of tunable Dirac terahertz magneto-plasmons in graphene.

We present infrared spectroscopy study of plasmon excitations in graphene in high magnetic fields. The plasmon resonance in patterned graphene disks splits into edge and bulk plasmon modes in magnetic fields. Remarkably, the edge plasmons develop increasingly longer lifetimes in high fields due to the suppression of backscattering. Moreover, due to the linear band structure of graphene, the splitting of the edge and bulk plasmon modes develops a strong doping dependence, which differs from the behavior of conventional semiconductor two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) systems. We also observe the appearance of a higher order mode indicating an anharmonic confinement potential even in these well-defined circular disks. Our work not only opens an avenue for the investigation of the properties of Dirac magnetoplasmons but also supports the great potential of graphene for tunable terahertz magneto-optical devices.