Graphene Plasmonics: a Novel Fully Atomistic Approach for Realistic Structures

Abstract: We demonstrate that the plasmonic properties of realistic graphene and graphene-based materials can effectively and accurately be modeled by a novel, fully atomistic, yet classical, approach, named $\omega$FQ. Such model is able to reproduce all plasmonic features of these materials, and their dependence on shape, dimension and fundamental physical parameters (Fermi energy, relaxation time and two-dimensional electron density). Remarkably, $\omega$FQ is able to accurately reproduce experimental data for realistic structures of hundreds of nanometers ($\sim$ 370.000 atoms), which cannot be afforded by any \emph{ab-initio} method. Also, the atomistic nature of $\omega$FQ permits the investigation of complex shapes, which can hardly be dealt with by exploiting widespread continuum approaches.