Electrically tunable graphene plasmonic lens: from Maxwell Fisheye Lens to Luneburg Lens

Opt Express. 2023 Sep 11;31(19):31574-31586.

Abstract

A graphene plasmonic lens with an electrically tunable focal length is proposed and numerically investigated. The design philosophy of the proposed tunable lens is based on the nonlinear relationship of surface plasmon polariton (SPP) wave index with respect to chemical potential of graphene. By controlling the gate voltage of graphene, the proposed lens can be continuously tuned from a Maxwell Fisheye lens to a Luneburg lens. A ray-tracing method is employed to find out the corresponding gate voltages for various focal lengths. Full-wave EM simulations using COMSOL show that excellent focusing performances can be achieved. This work offers a new way in exploiting active transformational plasmonic elements in the mid-infrared region.