We investigate through analytic calculations the surface plasmon dispersion relation for monolayer graphene sheets and a separated parallel pair of graphene monolayers. An approximate form for the dispersion relation for the monolayer case was derived, which was shown to be highly accurate and offers intuition to the properties of the supported plasmon mode. For parallel graphene pairs separated by small gaps, the dispersion relation of the surface plasmon splits into two branches, one with a symmetric and the other with an antisymmetric magnetic field across the gap. For the symmetric (magnetic field) branch, the confinement may be improved at reduced absorption loss over a wide spectrum, unlike conventional SP modes supported on metallic surfaces that are subjected to the trade-off between loss and confinement. This symmetric mode becomes strongly suppressed for very small separations however. On the other hand, its antisymmetric counterpart exhibits reduced absorption loss for very small separations or long wavelengths, serving as a complement to the symmetric branch. Our results suggest that graphene plasmon structures could be promising for waveguiding and sensing applications in the mid-infrared and terahertz frequencies.

We demonstrate strong chiral optical response in three-dimensional chiral nanoparticle oligomers in the wavelength regime between 700 and 3500 nm.We show in experiment and simulation that this broad-band response occurs at the onset of charge transfer between the individual nanoparticles. The ohmic contact causes a strong red shift of the fundamental mode, while the geometrical shape of the resulting fused particles still allows for an efficient excitation of higher order modes. Calculated spectra and field distributions confirm our interpretation and show a number of interacting plasmonic modes. Our results deepen the understanding of the chiral optical response in complex chiral plasmonic nanostructures and pave the road toward broad-band chiral optical devices with strong responses, for example, for chiral plasmon rulers or sensing applications.

We propose a quarter-wave plate based on nanoslits and analyze it using a semianalytical theory and simulations. The device comprises two nanoslits arranged perpendicular to one another where the phases of the fields transmitted by the nanoslits differ by λ/4. In this way, the polarization state of the incident light can be changed from linear to circular or vice versa. The plasmonic nanoslit wave plate is thin and has a subwavelength lateral extent. We show that the predictions for the phase shift obtained from a semianalytical model are in very good agreement with simulations by the finite difference time domain method.