Plasmonic response of graphene nanostructures

Resumo

Doped graphene has attracted an enormous interest due to its extraordinary optoelectronic properties useful for nanophotonics. Specifically, its bidimensional nature and singular atomic structure are translated into an unconventional linear dispersion relation. Thus, when nanostructures of graphene are illuminated, the excited plasmons (collective oscillations of conduction electrons) possess salient features like high tunability and degree of confinement, enhancement of the electromagnetic fields, strong nonlocalities and nonlinearities... In this thesis, we realize an in-depth study of the plasmonic response of doped graphene under different novel conditions. We focus on the theoretical concepts that could be useful for the design of future graphene plasmonic devices. In particular, we present a general electrostatic scaling law in order find the graphene plasmon frequencies, we study the effects of inhomogeneous distributions of doping, we account for the substantial quantum-nonlocal and nonlinear effects over graphene plasmons, and finally, we present a new molecular sensing technique including graphene.