Enhanced infrared transmission through gold nanoslit arrays via surface plasmons in continuous graphene

Graphene is a monolayer plasmonic material that has been widely studied in the area of plasmonics and nanophotonics. Combining graphene with traditional plasmonic structures provides new opportunities and challenges. One particular application for nanostructured metals is enhanced optical transmission. However, extraordinary transmission (EOT) is known to have a frequency-selective performance due to size and periodicity of the nanohole arrays. Here, we propose to use a continuous graphene layer to enhance transmission through gold nanoslit arrays at mid-infrared (mid-IR) wavelengths. Although graphene absorbs 2.3% of light, by exciting surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) at the graphene/gold nanoslit arrays interface, we have theoretically demonstrated enhanced infrared transmission over broad range of wavelengths in the mid-IR region. Our analyses of the effects of various structure parameters on the transmittance spectra shows that surface plasmon polaritons excited at the graphene/metal interface is responsible for enhanced transmission behavior. Moreover, calculated steady-state electric field distribution supports our predictions. Our work opens new directions to study 2D plasmonics using a continuous graphene film without the need of structuring it and also employs the broadband optical response of graphene to enable broadband extraordinary transmission enhancement.