Tailorable reflection of surface plasmons in defect engineered graphene
W. Luo, W. Cai, W. Wu, Y. Xiang, M. Ren, X. Zhang and J. Xu
2D Materials, 3 045001 (2016)
The electrical, optical, mechanical and thermal properties of graphene can be significantly altered by
defects, thus engineering the defects in graphene is promising for applications in functionalized
materials and nanoscale devices. Here the propagations of surface plasmon waves near graphene
defect boundaries created by ion beams are studied. Specifically, plasmon reflections are observed
near the induced defect boundaries for the first time, which implies that ion-irradiation induced
defects act as efficient scattering centers for the plasmonic waves, just like the native grain boundaries.
Moreover, engineering the defects with varied ion doses results in tailorable plasmon reflection
properties due to changed defect degrees. The controllable plasmon reflections near ion induced
defect boundaries open up a new avenue for plasmon wave engineering.