Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) has been intensively studied and widely employed for light trapping and absorption enhancement. In the mid-infrared and terahertz (THz) regime, graphene supports tunable SPR via manipulating its Fermi energy and enhances light–matter interaction at the selected wavelength. Most previous studies have concentrated on the absorption enhancement in graphene itself while little attention has been paid to trapping light and enhancing the light absorption in other light-absorbing materials with graphene SPR. In this work, periodic arrays of graphene rings are proposed to introduce tunable light trapping with good angle polarization tolerance and enhance the absorption in the surrounding light-absorbing materials by more than one order of magnitude. Moreover, the design principle here could be set as a template to achieve multi-band plasmonic absorption enhancement by introducing more graphene concentric rings into each unit cell. This work not only opens up new ways of employing graphene SPR, but also leads to practical applications in high-performance simultaneous multi-color photodetection with high efficiency and tunable spectral selectivity.

Graphene has emerged as a promising building block in modern optics and optoelectronics due to its novel optical and electrical properties. In the mid-infrared and terahertz (THz) regime, graphene behaves like metals and supports surface plasmon resonances (SPRs). Moreover, the continuously tunable conductivity of graphene enables active SPRs and gives rise to a range of active applications. However, the interaction between graphene and metal-based resonant metamaterials has not been fully understood. In this work, a simulation investigation on the interaction between the graphene layer and THz resonances supported by the two-gap split ring metamaterials is systematically conducted. The simulation results show that the graphene layer can substantially reduce the Fano resonance and even switch it off, while leaving the dipole resonance nearly unaffected, which is well explained with the high conductivity of graphene. With the manipulation of graphene conductivity via altering its Fermi energy or layer number, the amplitude of the Fano resonance can be modulated. The tunable Fano resonance here together with the underlying physical mechanism can be strategically important in designing active metal-graphene hybrid metamaterials. In addition, the ‘sensitivity’ to the graphene layer of the Fano resonance is also highly appreciated in the field of ultrasensitive sensing, where the novel physical mechanism can be employed in sensing other graphene-like two-dimensional materials or biomolecules with the high conductivity.

We numerically demonstrate a novel monolayer graphene-based perfect absorption multi-layer photonic structure by the mechanism of critical coupling with guided resonance, in which the absorption of graphene can significantly reach 99% at telecommunication wavelengths. The highly efficient absorption and spectral selectivity can be obtained with designing structural parameters in the near-infrared region. Compared to previous works, we achieve the complete absorption of single-atomic-layer graphene in the perfect absorber with a lossless dielectric Bragg mirror, which not only opens up new methods of enhancing the light-graphene interaction, but also makes for practical applications in high-performance optoelectronic devices, such as modulators and sensors.

In this paper, we propose dynamically tunable plasmon induced transparency (PIT) in a graphene-based nanoribbon waveguide coupled with graphene rectangular resonators structure on sapphire substrate by shifting the Fermi energy level of the graphene. Two different methods are employed to obtain the PIT effect: one is based on the direct destructive interference between a radiative state and a dark state, the other is based on the indirect coupling through a graphene nanoribbon waveguide. Our numerical results reveal that high tunability in the PIT transparency window can be obtained by altering the Fermi energy levels of the graphene rectangular resonators. Moreover, double PITs are also numerically predicted in this ultracompact structure, comprising series of graphene rectangular resonators. Compared with previously proposed graphene-based PIT effects, our proposed scheme is much easier to design and fabricate. This work not only paves a new way towards the realization of graphene-based integrated nanophotonic devices, but also has important applications in multi-channel-selective filters, sensors, and slow light.

Plasmonic nanostructure biosensors based on metal are a powerful tool in the biosensing field. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) can be classified into localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) and propagating surface plasmon polariton (PSPP), based on the transmission mode. Initially, the physical principles of LSPR and PSPP are elaborated. In what follows, the recent development of the biosensors related to SPR principle is summarized. For clarity, they are categorized into three groups according to the sensing principle: (i) inherent resonance-based biosensors, which are sensitive to the refractive index changes of the surroundings; (ii) plasmon nanoruler biosensors in which the distances of the nanostructure can be changed by biomolecules at the nanoscale; and (iii) surface-enhanced Raman scattering biosensors in which the nanostructure serves as an amplifier for Raman scattering signals. Moreover, the advanced application of single-molecule detection is discussed in terms of metal nanoparticle and nanopore structures. The review concludes by providing perspectives on the future development of plasmonic nanostructure biosensors.

Novel hybrid metal-graphene metamaterials featuring dynamically controllable single, double and multiple plasmon induced transparency (PIT) windows are numerically explored in the terahertz (THz) regime. The designed plasmonic metamaterials composed of a strip and a ring with graphene integration generate a novel PIT window. Once the ring is divided into pairs of asymmetrical arcs, double PIT windows both with the spectral contrast ratio 100% are obtained, where one originates from the destructive interference between bright-dark modes, and the other is based on the interaction of bright-bright modes. Just because the double PIT windows are induced by two different mechanisms, the continuously controllable conductivity and damping of graphene are employed to appropriately interpret the high tunability in double transparency peaks at the resonant frequency, respectively. Moreover, multiple PIT windows can be achieved by introducing an additional bright mode to form the other bright-bright modes coupling. At the PIT transparent windows, the dispersions undergo tremendous modifications and the group delays reach up to 43 ps, 22 ps, and 25 ps, correspondingly. Our results suggest the existence of strong interaction between the monolayer graphene layer and metal-based resonant plasmonic metamaterials, which may hold widely applications in filters, modulators, switching, sensors and optical buffers.