Morphological modulation of graphene-mediated hybridization in plasmonic systems

We investigated the plasmonic response of a 2-dimensional ordered array of closely spaced (few-nm apart) Au nanoparticles covered by a large-area single-layer graphene sheet. The array consisted of coherently aligned nanoparticle chains, endowed with a characteristic uniaxial anisotropy. The joint effect of such a morphology and of the very small particle size and spacing led to a corresponding uniaxial wrinkling of graphene in the absence of detectable strain. The deposition of graphene redshifted the Au plasmon-resonance, strongly increased the optical absorption of the array and, most importantly, induced a marked optical anisotropy in the plasmonic response, absent in the pristine nanoparticle array. The experimental observations are accounted for by invoking a graphene-mediated resistive coupling between the Au nanoparticles, where the optical anisotropy arises from the wrinkling-induced anisotropic electron mobility in graphene at optical frequencies.