Tunability of optical absorption in a heterostructure with an embedded graphene sliver

Summary form only given. A key design component of optical instruments employed in diverse roles such as detectors, optical resonators, and thermal-imaging cameras is enhancement of the optical absorption. The efficiency of absorption in conventional thin metallic films can be further improved by replacing them with graphene detectors. This paper obtained analytical models of transmittance and reflectance of a monolayer graphene in a dielectric media. It is shown that the optical absorption in graphene is highly tunable as a function of the electrical conductivity in graphene, incident wavelength, and a dependence on heterostructure dimensions and materials. The study provides the first quantitative guidelines for photonics device design using tunability of graphene absorption characteristics over a broad frequency spectrum.