ISBN 9783843907040

978-3-8439-0704-0, Reihe Physik

Rainer Stöhr
Light-matter interaction in graphene: A new playground for nonlinear optics, metrology and nanoscale device fabrication

172 Seiten, Dissertation Universität Stuttgart (2012), Hardcover, A5

Zusammenfassung / Abstract

Graphene is the first example of a strictly two-dimensional crystal and represents a conceptually new class of materials.

The ambition of this work is to study different aspects of light-matter interaction in graphene. It starts by exploring a variety of non-linear optical phenomena observed under laser excitation in the visible and near-infrared spectral range. The most intriguing of which is the occurrence of an ultra-relativistic electron-hole plasma that can be observed when exciting graphene with ultrashort laser pulses. Furthermore, this study introduces a purely optical technique for the fabrication of different graphene nanostructures. Finally, the focus of the work is set on the energy transfer between graphene and fluorescence centers due to strong non-radiative dipole-dipole coupling. Metrological applications are demonstrated in the form of a scanning-probe FRET microscope as well as in an optical super-resolution imaging technique of graphene.

The findings presented here reveal the richness of graphene’s versatile optical properties and substantiate its current status as the rising star in photonics research.