Proceedings

EPJ B Highlight - Turning graphene into light nanosensors

Absorption on the plane of incident angle and wavelength.

Tuning the graphene embedded in a photonic crystal by varying the external temperature can transform it into a light-sensitive sensor

Graphene has many properties; it is e.g. an extremely good conductor. But it does not absorb light very well. To remedy this limiting aspect of what is an otherwise amazing material, physicists resort to embedding a sheet of graphene in a flat photonic crystal, which is excellent for controlling the flow of light. The combination endows graphene with substantially enhanced light-absorbing capabilities. In a new study published in EPJ B, Arezou Rashidi and Abdolrahman Namdar from the University of Tabriz, Iran demonstrate that, by altering the temperature in such a hybrid cavity structure, they can tune its capacity for optical absorption. They explain that it is the thermal expansion and thermo-optical effects which give the graphene these optical characteristics. Potential applications include light sensors, ultra-fast lasers, and systems capable of modulating incoming optical beams.

The authors study the light absorption of the material as a function of temperature, the chemical energy potential, the light polarisation and its incidence angles. To do so, they use a modelling method called the transfer matrix method. They find that for normal light incidence, there is enhanced absorption at room temperature, while the absorption peak is shifted toward the red as the temperature increases.

As light comes in at an angle, the authors show that the absorption peaks are sensitive to the incident angles as well as the polarisation state of the light. They also find that by increasing the incident angle, the peak wavelength is shifted toward the blue.

They conclude that the peak wavelength can be controlled by varying either the temperature or incident angle, as well as the chemical energy potential of graphene. This shows that there are a number of tunable features that could be exploited for the design of graphene-based nano-devices, such as temperature-sensitive absorbers and sensors.

This was our first experience of publishing with EPJ Web of Conferences. We contacted the publisher in the middle of September, just one month prior to the Conference, but everything went through smoothly. We have had published MNPS Proceedings with different publishers in the past, and would like to tell that the EPJ Web of Conferences team was probably the best, very quick, helpful and interactive. Typically, we were getting responses from EPJ Web of Conferences team within less than an hour and have had help at every production stage.
We are very thankful to Solange Guenot, Web of Conferences Publishing Editor, and Isabelle Houlbert, Web of Conferences Production Editor, for their support. These ladies are top-level professionals, who made a great contribution to the success of this issue. We are fully satisfied with the publication of the Conference Proceedings and are looking forward to further cooperation. The publication was very fast, easy and of high quality. My colleagues and I strongly recommend EPJ Web of Conferences to anyone, who is interested in quick high-quality publication of conference proceedings.

On behalf of the Organizing and Program Committees and Editorial Team of MNPS-2019, Dr. Alexey B. Nadykto, Moscow State Technological University “STANKIN”, Moscow, Russia. EPJ Web of Conferences vol. 224 (2019)

ISSN: 2100-014X (Electronic Edition)

© EDP Sciences