Graphene plasmons in the presence of adatoms

Abstract

We theoretically investigate graphene plasmons in the presence of a low density of adatoms on the graphene surface. The adatoms can significantly modify the conductivity and plasmonic properties of graphene and may produce a level splitting with the plasmon mode, resulting in two plasmon branches. The high energy branch exhibits large losses and the low energy branch exhibits low losses. Our model may also be considered as a simple model for molecules on graphene and we show that graphene plasmons are sensitive to such changes in the environment. Our microscopic treatment of plasmons and adatoms shows the sensitivity of plasmons and highlights the potential of graphene plasmons for sensing purposes.