Far-field excitation of single graphene plasmon cavities with ultracompressed mode volumes.

Epstein, Itai; Alcaraz, David; Huang, Zhiqin; Pusapati, Varun-Varma; Hugonin, Jean-Paul; Kumar, Avinash; Deputy, Xander M; Khodkov, Tymofiy et al. · Science · 2020

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Acoustic graphene plasmons are highly confined electromagnetic modes carrying large momentum and low loss in the mid-infrared and terahertz spectra. However, until now they have been restricted to micrometer-scale areas, reducing their confinement potential by several orders of magnitude. Using a graphene-based magnetic resonator, we realized single, nanometer-scale acoustic graphene plasmon cavities, reaching mode volume confinement factors of ~5 × 10<sup>10</sup> Such a cavity acts as a mid-infrared nanoantenna, which is efficiently excited from the far field and is electrically tunable over an extremely large broadband spectrum. Our approach provides a platform for studying ultrastrong-coupling phenomena, such as chemical manipulation via vibrational strong coupling, as well as a path to efficient detectors and sensors operating in this long-wavelength spectral range.