Graphene nanophotonic sensors

Abstract

Graphene is known to possess a host of remarkable properties such as a zero bandgap at its Dirac point, broadband saturable optical absorption, ballistic carrier transport at room temperature, as well as extremely high stiffness and thermal conductivity. This has in turn made it a material of interest for many applications, ranging from fundamental physics studies to electronic devices. From a photonics perspective, graphene's ability to support surface plasmon-polaritons with extremely small mode volumes in the infrared spectral regime and beyond renders it an ideal platform for strongly enhanced light-matter interactions at deeply subwavelength size scales. Together with its large bandwidth of operation, as well as intrinsic chemical stability and affinity to organic molecules, graphene serves as a natural candidate for numerous optics-based sensing applications. This article reviews recent works that highlight the various advantages of graphene in an optical sensing context. Specifically, it focuses on how the passive functionalization of graphene can improve the performance of existing optical sensors, and how its use as an active signal transduction element could lead to various novel or hybrid devices that extend the functionalities of traditional sensors.

NEMS Resonators for Detection of Chemical Warfare Agents Based on Graphene Sheet

“…According to the research [12] GO proved to be promising candidate of gas detection under standard humidity conditions. Transducing mechanisms that can be used for detection of nanoparticles are optical [13,14] (luminescence, absorption, polarization, and fluorescence), mass [15] (acoustic waves, absorption, and polarization), electrochemical [16] (conductometric, amperometric, potentiometric, and ion-sensitive), piezoelectric [17], and thermal.…”

Graphene-Based Junction Devices for Hydrogen Sensors

“…For the development of optical gas sensors, graphene has the preference. The chemical stability, affinity to inorganic and organic molecules, scope of surface functionalization and synthesis of composites with catalytic metals and/or other materials make graphene a suitable choice in the field of optical gas sensors [48].…”

Infrared Plasmonic Sensing with Anisotropic Two-Dimensional Material Borophene

“…In particular, 2D materials such as graphene and black phosphorus (BP) can support deep-subwavelength SPPs in mid-infrared and terahertz (THz) regimes, providing ideal platforms for plasmonic sensing [22,23]. For example, the Nanomaterials 2021, 11, 1165 2 of 11 plasmon resonances of nanostructured graphene can be actively tuned by an external voltage to probe molecules selectively in mid-infrared [24,25]. BP possesses anisotropic plasmons in the plane, which offer richer physics to the sensing design [26,27].…”