The reduction of surface plasmon losses in quasi-suspended graphene

Highly confined surface plasmons on graphene attract substantial interest as potential information carriers for highly integrated photonic data processing circuits. However, plasmon losses remain the main obstacle for implementation of such devices. In near-field microscopic experiments performed at the wavelength of 10 μm we show that a substantial reduction of plasmon damping can be achieved by placing a nanometric polymer nano-dots spacer between the graphene layer and the supporting silicon oxide slab making graphene quasi-suspended. We argue that reduction of plasmon losses is attributed to weaker coupling with substrate phonons in the quasi-suspended graphene.