UC Irvine

The effects of induced optical polarization by Dirac electrons in graphene on the hybridization of radiative and evanescent fields are found. Such effects result in a localized polarization field which significantly modifies an incident surface-plasmon-polariton (SPP) field. This yields a high sensitivity to local dielectric environments and provides an investigative tool for molecules or proteins selectively bound with carbons. A scattering matrix is utilized with varied frequencies in the vicinity of the surface-plasmon (SP) resonance for the increase, decrease, and even a full suppression of the polarization field, which enables accurate effective-medium theories to be constructed for Maxwell-equation finite-difference time-domain methods. Moreover, double peaks in the absorption spectra for hybrid SP and graphene-plasmon modes are significant only with a large conductor plasma frequency, but are overshadowed by a round SPP peak at a small plasma frequency as the graphene is placed close to the conductor surface. These resonant absorptions facilitate polariton-only excitations, leading to polariton condensation for a threshold-free laser.