1
On the Effect of Width of Metallic Armchair
Graphene Nanoribbons in Plasmonic Waveguide
Applications
Sami Smaili, Vikas Singal, and Yehia Massoud
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department,University of Alabama at Birmingham,
Birmingham, Al 35294
Abstract—Graphene demonstrates superior
electronic properties that make it a potential
candidate for future electronic systems. Graphene,
additionally, support surface plasmon oscillations,
which in turn makes graphene at tractive for
optoelectronics because of its planar structure and
its conductivity properties. When a graphene layer
is confined in one dimension, a graphene
nanoribbon arises, with proerties differing from the
original two dimensional graphene. In this paper
we study the main properties of plasmon
oscillations on metallic armchair graphene
nanoribbons using the dielectric function obtained
through the random phase approximation. We
mainly study the effect of the graphene nanoribbon
width on the plasmon propagation length using
numerical techniques to extract the dispersion
relation of graphene nanoribbons and the
propagation properties of palsmons on graphene
nanoribbons.
I. INTRODUCTION
The excellent electrical properties of graphene allows
this material to play an important role in a wide range
of applications such as high density interconnects for
VLSI systems, new field effect transistors, and THz
devices [1]. Graphene based electronics are suggested
for applications in analog and RF systems to enhance
the performance of such systems and to mitigate the
limitations that faces current technologies [2]-[27] . The
planar nature of graphene makes graphene based
devices extremely small. Thus, while allowing high
levels of miniaturization, graphene has excellent
electronic properties that allow the realization of high
perfor mance electronic and optoelectronic devices.
Plasmonic devices, in general, are characterized
mainly by their ability to manipulate light at sub
wavelength scales [28]-[34]. Combining the ex cellent
electronic properties of graphene with the power of
978-1-4673-1124-3/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE
622
plasmonics promise to provide novel solu tions for a
wide range of applications. For instance, graphene
plasmonic devices promise to play an important role in
future VLSI systems to mitigate the effects of their
down scaling using current technologiessystems [26],
[35]-[78].
Graphene consists of a sheet of honeycomb lattice
of carbon atoms in which the electrons can be treated as
a two dimensional electron gas (2DEG). Graphene
support plasmon oscillations (the oscil lations of charge
density) at THz frequencies, and thus can be used to
build nanoscale THz waveg uides. Plasmonic devices
that utilize the plasmon oscillation on metal-dielectric
interfaces have been used for subwavelength
waveguiding of optical waves [1].
Graphene Nanoribbons (GNRs) consist of graphene
sheets with finite width. The confined dimension makes
the properties of GNRs different from those of inifinite
graphene layers [79]. The type of GNR depends on the
way the graphene sheet is cut, and two types are mostly
famous: armchair GNRs and zigzag GNRs. Zigzag
GNRs do not support plasmon oscillations because
those are damped by surface states. Armchair GNRs
can be either metallic or insulating depending on their
width. We consider in this paper metallic armchair
GNRs.
II. GRAPHENE NANORIBBON DIELECTRIC
FUNTION
We assume in this paper that the GNR is confined in
the x direction and charge density oscillations occur in
the y direction. The confinement of the two
dimensional graphene in one direction results in the
quantization of energy states, with energies [79]
Ens (k y )=s ao γ √ k n+ k y
2 2
(1)
NEMS 2012, Kyoto, JAPAN, March 5-8,2012
 4

where ao is the graphene lattice constant, s = -1 for a

valence band and s = 1 for a conduction band. The
index n labels the subband and kn is given by

2 πn 2π
k n= +
2 W + a0 3 a 0
(2)

where W is the GNR width. The dielectric function can

be described by means of a tensor whose entries are
given as [79]

ϵ ijmn ( q , ω )=δ ℑ δ jn −v ijmn (q)Π m ,n (q ,ω) (3)

The matrix elements of the coulomb interaction are

1 1
v ijmn=∫ du ∫ du cos [ π ( i− j ) u ]
'
Fig. 1. Dispersion relation for an armchair GNR with
0 0 various widths.
2
2e
k o (qW |u−u |)
' '
cos [π ( m−n ) u ] theorem to get the imaginary part and the Kramers
ϵo Kronig relations to obtain the real part of the integral.
(4) We used complex frequencies to account for scattering
by two main mechanisms, scattering of electrons in
where e is the electronic charge, Eo is the average of
graphene and scattering due to edge roughness. For the
the dielectric constants of the media surrounding the
electron scattering, we used a scattering time of 0.5ps
GNR, and Ko is the zeroth-order modified Bessel
while for the edge rough ness we used [80]
function of the second kind. The dielectric function of
GNRs can be approximated by 2 2 2
ϵ=1−v 0 , 0 ∑ Xn ℏ W 1+ 4 k y Λ 1
(5) τ ( E )= (7)
n
2
π En H
2
Λ ρ (E)¿ ¿
Where where p(E) is the density of states, H is the amplitude of
gs 2 ∆ n (k y , q) edge roughness, and A is the correlation length of
Xn= ∑
L y k ( ℏω+iδ )2−(∆ ¿ ¿ n (k y , q))2
¿ roughness. The dispersion relation is obtained by
y
setting the determinent of the tensor in 5, and is shown
in figure 1 for an armchair GNR with various widths.
Fn −¿,n
+(k y ,k y +q )¿ (6) The dispersion curve moves to the right as the GNR
width increases. This means that the plasmon
where gs is the spin degeneracy (2), ∆ n (ky,q) =|En(ky + wavevector at a given frequency increases as the width
1 of the GNR increases. Figure 2 shows the propagation
q) | + |En(ky)| and Fn -,n+(ky,ky + q) = (1 - cos). length of an armchair GNR for various GNR
2 widths. The propagation length decreases as the width
We note here that the sum over wavevectors is in of the GNR increases. Typically, there is a tradeoff
fact an integral, and the δ is added for the integration to between propagation length and confinement in the
convergence. The integration is evaluated as δ → 0 waveguide. This behavior is shown in figure 3, which
using the Sokhatsky-Weierstrass shows the imaginary part of the wavevector
perpendiculat to the graphene sheet versus frequency
for a GNR with various widths. This quantity measures
for the decay of fields away from the GNR (z
direction); the higher Imag(kz), the more confined is
the wave on the GNR surface. Figure 3 shows that as
the GNR

Fig. 2. Propagation length of an armchair GNR vs.
frequency for various GNR widths
Fig. 3. Imaginary part of the wavevector
perpendiculat to the graphene sheet versus frequency.
width increases, the confinement of the wave on the
GNR surface increases. Thus, as the GNR width
increases, the propagation length decreases but the
confinement increases.
III. CONCLUSION
Graphene plasmonics is an emerging field that
combines the power of plasmon oscillations with the
excellent properties of graphene. In this paper we
investigated the propagation length of plasmons on
graphene nanoribbons, which is one of the most
important properties of waveguiding structures. The
results show that GNRs support propagation lengths
much alrger than the dimensions of the GNR.
4
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