Graphene & 2D Materials

Two-dimensional materials have been shown to support many remarkable electrical and optical phenomena, where for the latter, our group has demonstrated the ability to significantly modify the polarization of light with a single graphene monolayer. In this talk, I will discuss the results of magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements, which elucidate the interactions between polarized infrared light and mono-/multi-layer graphene. In general, these measurements are extremely sensitive to the number and the stacking arrangment (AA, AB, ABC, etc) of graphene layers. We also find that the graphene doping density plays a major role in turning on and off the changes in polarization, which opens up the opportunity to produce fast, graphene-based polarization modulators by employing an electrically tunable gate. In addition, I will discuss our recent work on highly anisotropic nanostructured two-dimensional materials, such as hexagonal BN pillars, which are able to strongly confine infrared light beyond the diffraction limit. When combined, these two materials systems can potentially result in nearfield polarization control.