Control of reflection through epsilon near zero graphene based anisotropic metamaterial

Abstract

In graphene dielectric multilayer structure, a very interesting phenomena such as epsilon near zero property rises naturally. However, this epsilon near zero property (along with the proper control of chemical potential and gate voltage) of graphene multi-layer stack has not been used so far to make novel photonic switches. In this article, we have shown theoretically that in graphene-dielectric stack, which acts as an anisotropic metamaterial, full control of reflection and so transmission of light at a specific wavelength or frequency can be controlled very simply by external gate voltage. This external voltage tunes the chemical potential and so the parallel permittivity of the anisotropic structure. Our theoretical prediction may pave the way to novel voltage control photonic logic switches, which may play as an intermediate solution before entering into all optical commercial switches (as current silicon and electron based CMOS technology is facing a dead end).