Plasmonic mode analysis of deep subwavelength graphene nanoribbon waveguides

Deep subwavelength plasmonic graphene nanoribbon waveguides for telecommunication frequencies are proposed. The mode properties of graphene nanoribbon waveguides with varied chemical potential are numerically investigated in terms of the effective indices and the propagation length of the plasmonic modes. A refractive index as high as 4980 is obtained on the plasmonic mode along the nanoribbon waveguide with a width of 3 nm at a frequency of 190 THz, and the normalized mode area on the scale of 10(-8)(1/lambda(0))(2). An embedded graphene nanoribbon waveguide was also proposed and it is that the optical characteristic can be tuned by adjusting the chemical potential of graphene. The proposed structure can be a fundamental component of the future integrated plasmonic circuit system. (C) 2016 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)