Robust Phonon-Plasmon Coupling in Quasifreestanding Graphene on Silicon Carbide

Synchrotron Near-Field Infrared Nanospectroscopy and Nanoimaging of Lithium Fluoride in Solid Electrolyte Interphases in Li-Ion Battery Anodes

Lithium fluoride (LiF) is a ubiquitous component in the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer in Li-ion batteries. However, its nanoscale structure, morphology, and topology, important factors for understanding LiF and SEI film functionality, including electrode passivity, are often unknown due to limitations in spatial resolution of common characterization techniques. Ultrabroadband near-field synchrotron infrared nanospectroscopy (SINS) enables such detection and mapping of LiF in SEI layers in the far-infrared region down to ca. 322 cm-1 with a nanoscale spatial resolution of ca. 20 nm. The surface sensitivity of SINS and the large infrared absorption cross section of LiF, which can support local surface phonons under certain circumstances, enabled characterization of model LiF samples of varying structure, thickness, surface roughness, and degree of crystallinity, as confirmed by atomic force microscopy, attenuated total reflectance FTIR, SINS, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, high-angle annular dark-field, and scanning transmission electron microscopy. Enabled by this approach, LiF within SEI films formed on Cu, Si, and metallic glass Si40Al50Fe10 electrodes was detected and characterized. The nanoscale morphologies and topologies of LiF in these SEI layers were evaluated to gain insights into LiF nucleation, growth, and the resulting nuances in the electrode surface passivity.

Electron cooling in graphene enhanced by plasmon-hydron resonance

Evidence is accumulating for the crucial role of a solid's free electrons in the dynamics of solid-liquid interfaces. Liquids induce electronic polarization and drive electric currents as they flow; electronic excitations, in turn, participate in hydrodynamic friction. Yet, the underlying solid-liquid interactions have been lacking a direct experimental probe. Here we study the energy transfer across liquid-graphene interfaces using ultrafast spectroscopy. The graphene electrons are heated up quasi-instantaneously by a visible excitation pulse, and the time evolution of the electronic temperature is then monitored with a terahertz pulse. We observe that water accelerates the cooling of the graphene electrons, whereas other polar liquids leave the cooling dynamics largely unaffected. A quantum theory of solid-liquid heat transfer accounts for the water-specific cooling enhancement through a resonance between the graphene surface plasmon mode and the so-called hydrons-water charge fluctuations-particularly the water libration modes, which allows for efficient energy transfer. Our results provide direct experimental evidence of a solid-liquid interaction mediated by collective modes and support the theoretically proposed mechanism for quantum friction. They further reveal a particularly large thermal boundary conductance for the water-graphene interface and suggest strategies for enhancing the thermal conductivity in graphene-based nanostructures.

Regulating the Electronic Structure of Freestanding Graphene on SiC by Ge/Sn Intercalation: A Theoretical Study

The intrinsic n-type of epitaxial graphene on SiC substrate limits its applications in microelectronic devices, and it is thus vital to modulate and achieve p-type and charge-neutral graphene. The main groups of metal intercalations, such as Ge and Sn, are found to be excellent candidates to achieve this goal based on the first-principle calculation results. They can modulate the conduction type of graphene via intercalation coverages and bring out interesting magnetic properties to the entire intercalation structures without inducing magnetism to graphene, which is superior to the transition metal intercalations, such as Fe and Mn. It is found that the Ge intercalation leads to ambipolar doping of graphene, and the p-type graphene can only be obtained when forming the Ge adatom between Ge layer and graphene. Charge-neutral graphene can be achieved under high Sn intercalation coverage (7/8 bilayer) owing to the significantly increased distance between graphene and deformed Sn intercalation. These findings would open up an avenue for developing novel graphene-based spintronic and electric devices on SiC substrate.

Experimental observed plasmon near-field response in isolated suspended graphene resonators

Because of extreme three-dimensional field confinement and easy electrically tunability, plasmons in graphene nanostructures are promising candidates for many applications, such as biosensing, photodetectors and modulators. However, up to now, graphene plasmons have been explored mostly on substrates. Scatterers, corrugations and dopants induced by substrates not only add damping to plasmons but also obscure the intrinsic electronic properties of graphene. In this work, the near-field response of surface plasmons of suspended graphene circular resonators is studied with the scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy under different excitation wavelengths, λ = 10.653 and 10.22 μm, respectively. Fundamental and higher order breathing plasmon modes are revealed in real-space with the Fermi energy of graphene of only 0.132 eV. Moreover, the direct experimental evidence on near-field electric tuning in suspended graphene resonators is demonstrated by using back-gate tuning. Our work not only provides a foundation to truly understand the properties of electrons inside pure graphene, but shines light on the applications in optoelectronic devices with suspended two-dimensional materials.

An efficient Terahertz rectifier on the graphene/SiC materials platform

We present an efficient Schottky-diode detection scheme for Terahertz (THz) radiation, implemented on the material system epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide (SiC). It employs SiC as semiconductor and graphene as metal, with an epitaxially defined interface. For first prototypes, we report on broadband operation up to 580 GHz, limited only by the RC circuitry, with a responsivity of 1.1 A/W. Remarkably, the voltage dependence of the THz responsivity displays no deviations from DC responsivity, which encourages using this transparent device for exploring the high frequency limits of Schottky rectification in the optical regime. The performance of the detector is demonstrated by resolving sharp spectroscopic features of ethanol and acetone in a THz transmission experiment.

Tailored Emission Properties of ZnTe/ZnTe:O/ZnO Core-Shell Nanowires Coupled with an Al Plasmonic Bowtie Antenna Array

The ability to manipulate light-matter interaction in semiconducting nanostructures is fascinating for implementing functionalities in advanced optoelectronic devices. Here, we report the tailoring of radiative emissions in a ZnTe/ZnTe:O/ZnO core-shell single nanowire coupled with a one-dimensional aluminum bowtie antenna array. The plasmonic antenna enables changes in the excitation and emission processes, leading to an obvious enhancement of near band edge emission (2.2 eV) and subgap excitonic emission (1.7 eV) bound to intermediate band states in a ZnTe/ZnTe:O/ZnO core-shell nanowire as well as surface-enhanced Raman scattering at room temperature. The increase of emission decay rate in the nanowire/antenna system, probed by time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy, yields an observable enhancement of quantum efficiency induced by local surface plasmon resonance. Electromagnetic simulations agree well with the experimental observations, revealing a combined effect of enhanced electric near-field intensity and the improvement of quantum efficiency in the ZnTe/ZnTe:O/ZnO nanowire/antenna system. The capability of tailoring light-matter interaction in low-efficient emitters may provide an alternative platform for designing advanced optoelectronic and sensing devices with precisely controlled response.

Strong coherent coupling between graphene surface plasmons and anisotropic black phosphorus localized surface plasmons

The anisotropic plasmons properties of black phosphorus allow for realizing direction-dependent plasmonics devices. Here, we theoretically investigated the hybridization between graphene surface plasmons (GSP) and anisotropic black phosphorus localized surface plasmons (BPLSP) in the strong coupling regime. By dynamically adjusting the Fermi level of graphene, we show that the strong coherent GSP-BPLSP coupling can be achieved in both armchair and zigzag directions, which is attributed to the anisotropic black phosphorus with different in-plane effective electron masses along the two crystal axes. The strong coupling is quantitatively described by calculating the dispersion of the hybrid modes using a coupled oscillator model. Mode splitting energy of 26.5 meV and 19 meV are determined for the GSP-BPLSP hybridization along armchair and zigzag direction, respectively. We also find that the coupling strength can be strongly affected by the distance between graphene sheet and black phosphorus nanoribbons. Our work may provide the building blocks to construct future highly compact anisotropic plasmonics devices based on two-dimensional materials at infrared and terahertz frequencies.

Real-Space Imaging of the Tailored Plasmons in Twisted Bilayer Graphene

We report a systematic plasmonic study of twisted bilayer graphene (TBLG)-two graphene layers stacked with a twist angle. Through real-space nanoimaging of TBLG single crystals with a wide distribution of twist angles, we find that TBLG supports confined infrared plasmons that are sensitively dependent on the twist angle. At small twist angles, TBLG has a plasmon wavelength comparable to that of single-layer graphene. At larger twist angles, the plasmon wavelength of TBLG increases significantly with apparently lower damping. Further analysis and modeling indicate that the observed twist-angle dependence of TBLG plasmons in the Dirac linear regime is mainly due to the Fermi-velocity renormalization, a direct consequence of interlayer electronic coupling. Our work unveils the tailored plasmonic characteristics of TBLG and deepens our understanding of the intriguing nano-optical physics in novel van der Waals coupled two-dimensional materials.

Dopant-Induced Plasmon Decay in Graphene

Chemically doped graphene could support plasmon excitations up to telecommunication or even visible frequencies. Apart from that, the presence of dopant may influence electron scattering mechanisms in graphene and thus impact the plasmon decay rate. Here I study from first principles these effects in single-layer and bilayer graphene doped with various alkali and alkaline earth metals. I find new dopant-activated damping channels: loss due to out-of-plane graphene and in-plane dopant vibrations, and electron transitions between graphene and dopant states. The latter excitations interact with the graphene plasmon, and together they form a new hybrid mode. The study points out a strong dependence of these features on the type of dopants and the number of layers, which could be used as a tuning mechanism in future graphene-based plasmonic devices.