Excitation of surface plasmon polaritons by electron beam with graphene ribbon arrays

Graphene has emerged as an alternative material to support surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) with its excellent properties such as the tight electromagnetic field localization, low dissipative loss, and versatile tunability. Thus, graphene surface plasmon polaritons (GSPs) provide an exciting platform to develop a series of novel devices and systems from the optical band to the terahertz (THz) band. In this paper, theoretical and simulated studies about the excitation of SPPs by an injected electron beam with periodic graphene ribbon arrays deposited on a dielectric medium are presented. The analytical dispersion expression of the GSP mode on the graphene ribbon arrays is obtained by using a modal expansion method along with periodic boundary conditions in the structure. With this result, the dispersion relation, propagation loss, and field pattern of the propagating GSPs for both periodic graphene microribbon arrays and the complete graphene sheet are investigated and analyzed in the THz band. It is shown that the electromagnetic field with a better concentration on the interface can be realized with graphene ribbon arrays compared with the graphene sheet for a given frequency. Besides, the excitation of GSPs by an injected electron beam with graphene ribbon arrays is modeled and implemented by the particle-in-cell simulation based on the finite difference time domain algorithm. GSPs can be excited effectively when the dispersion line of the electron beam and SPPs on the graphene ribbon arrays is matched with each other well. Besides, the dependences of output power on electron beam parameters such as the distance of the electron beam above the graphene ribbon surface and beam voltage are studied and analyzed. Finally, the tunability of graphene conductivity via biased voltage with a ground metal is considered and the tunable excitation of GSPs on the structure with biased drive voltage by the injected electron beam is also realized. The present work can find a lot of potential applications such as low loss plasmonic waveguides, graphene metamaterials, and tunable THz electronic sources. Published by AIP Publishing.