Optical Field Enhancement by Strong Plasmon Interaction in Graphene Nanostructures

The ability of plasmons to enhance the electromagnetic field intensity in the gap between metallic nanoparticles derives from their strong optical confinement relative to the light wavelength. The spatial extension of plasmons in doped graphene has recently been shown to be boldly reduced with respect to conventional plasmonic metals. Here, we show that graphene nanostructures are capable of capitalizing such strong confinement to yield unprecedented levels of field enhancement, well beyond what is found in noble metals of similar dimensions (~ tens of nanometers). We perform realistic, quantum-mechanical calculations of the optical response of graphene dimers formed by nanodisks and nanotriangles, showing a strong sensitivity of the level of enhancement to the type of carbon edges near the gap region, with armchair edges favoring stronger interactions than zigzag edges. Our quantum-mechanical description automatically incorporates nonlocal effects that are absent in classical electromagnetic theory, leading to over an order of magnitude higher enhancement in armchair structures. The classical limit is recovered for large structures. We predict giant levels of light concentration for dimers ~200 nm, leading to infrared-absorption enhancement factors ~10(8). This extreme light enhancement and confinement in nanostructured graphene has great potential for optical sensing and nonlinear devices.