Graphene is a promising material for strain engineering based on its excellent flexibility and elastic properties, coupled with very high electrical mobility. In order to implement strain devices, it is important to understand and control the clamping of graphene to its support. Here, we investigate the limits of the strong van der Waals interaction on friction clamping. We find that the friction of graphene on a SiO2 substrate can support a maximum local strain gradient and that higher strain gradients result in sliding and strain redistribution. Furthermore, the friction decreases with increasing strain. The system used is graphene placed over a nanoscale SiO2 grating, causing strain and local strain variations. We use a combination of atomic force microscopy and Raman scattering to determine the friction coefficient, after accounting for compression and accidental charge doping, and model the local strain variation within the laser spot size. By using uniaxial strain aligned to a high crystal symmetry direction, we also determine the 2D Raman Grüneisen parameter and deformation potential in the zigzag direction.
We experimentally generate n=0 Bessel beams via higher-order cladding mode excitation with a long period fiber grating. Our method allows >99% conversion efficiency, wide or narrow conversion bandwidth, and accurate control of the number of rings in the beam. This latter property is equivalent to tuning the beam cone angle and allows for control of width and propagation distance of the center spot. We generate Bessel-like beams from LP(0,5) to LP(0,15) cladding modes and measure their propagation-invariant characteristics as a function of mode order, which match numerical simulations and a simple geometric model. This yields a versatile tool for tuning depth of focus out of fiber tips, with potential uses in endoscopic microscopy.
Graphene provides a promising materials platform for fundamental studies and device applications in plasmonics. Here we investigate the excitation of THz plasmon polaritons in large-area graphene samples on standard oxidized silicon substrates, via diffractive coupling from an overlying periodic array of metallic nanoparticles. Pronounced plasmonic absorption features are measured, whose frequencies can be tuned across a large portion of the THz spectrum by varying the array period. At the same time, the ability to tune these resonances actively via electrostatic doping is found to be strongly limited by the presence of large carrier density variations across the sample area induced by the underlying SiO 2 , which are measured directly by Raman microscopy. These results highlight the importance of minimizing charge "puddles" in graphene plasmonic devices, e.g., through the use of more inert substrates, in order to take full advantage of their expected dynamic tunability for applications in THz optoelectronics.
By virtue of their distinctive electronic properties (including linear energy dispersion, large velocity, and potentially ultra-high mobility even at room temperature), charge carriers in single-layer graphene are uniquely suited to radiation mechanisms that so far have been the primary domain of electron beams in vacuum-based systems. Here, we consider the use of sinusoidally corrugated graphene sheets for the generation of THz light based on a fundamentally new cyclotron-like radiation process, which does not require the application of any external magnetic field. Instead, periodic angular motion under bias is simply produced by the graphene mechanical corrugation, combined with its two-dimensional nature which ensures that the carrier trajectories perfectly conform to the corrugation. Numerical simulations indicate that technologically significant output power levels can correspondingly be obtained at geometrically tunable THz frequencies. This mechanism (as well as similar electron-beam radiation processes such as the Smith-Purcell and Cherenkov effects in periodic nanostructures) may open the way for a new family of THz optoelectronic devices based on graphene, including solid-state 'free-electron' lasers potentially capable of room-temperature operation.
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