Direct Optical Probing of Transverse Electric Mode in Graphene

Unique electrodynamic response of graphene implies a manifestation of an unusual propagating and localised transverse-electric (TE) mode near the spectral onset of interband transitions. However, excitation and further detection of the TE mode supported by graphene is considered to be a challenge for it is extremely sensitive to excitation environment and phase matching condition adherence. Here for the first time, we experimentally prove an existence of the TE mode by its direct optical probing, demonstrating significant coupling to an incident wave in electrically doped multilayer graphene sheet at room temperature. We believe that proposed technique of careful phase matching and obtained access to graphene’s TE excitation would stimulate further studies of this unique phenomenon, and enable its potential employing in various fields of photonics as well as for characterization of graphene.