Engineering plasmon modes and their loss in armchair graphene nanoribbons by selected edge-extended defects

Abstract

The effect of edge modification of armchair graphene nanoribbons (AGNRs) on the collective excitations are theoretically investigated. The tight-binding method is employed in conjunction with the dielectric function. Unconventional plasmon modes and their association with the flat bands of the specially designed AGNRs are thoroughly studied. We demonstrate the robust relationship between the novel collective excitations and both the type and period of the edge modification. Additionally, we reveal that the main features displayed in the (momentum, frequency)-phase diagrams for both single-particle and collective excitations of AGNRs can be efficiently tuned by edge-extended defects. Our obtained plasmon modes are found to be analogous to magnetoplasmons associated with collective excitations of Landau-quantized electrons. This work provides a unique way to engineer discrete magnetoplasmon-like modes of AGNRs in the absence of magnetic field.

Role Played by Edge-Defects in the Optical Properties of Armchair Graphene Nanoribbons

“…The low-energy electronic properties of an edge-extended AGNR can be described in terms of the p z -orbital tight-binding Hamiltonian, which we write as In this expression, i and j denote lattice sites, C † i (C j ) is a creation (annihilation) operator, R ij is the translation vector between two atoms, γ R ij = −2.6 eV is the nearest-neighbor atomic interaction [28], and h.c. stands for the Hermitian conjugate of the first term. In general, the hopping term of graphene is defined as the π bond between carbon atoms, which takes the value −3.033 eV [29].…”