We propose a scheme for coupling laser light into graphene plasmons with the help of electrically generated surface acoustic waves. The surface acoustic wave forms a diffraction grating which allows to excite the long lived phonon-like branch of the hybridized graphene plasmon-phonon dispersion with infrared laser light. Our approach avoids patterning the graphene sheet, does not rely on complicated optical near-field techniques, and allows to electrically switch the coupling between far field radiation and propagating graphene plasmons.
@article{arxiv.1309.0767,
title = {Coupling light into graphene plasmons through surface acoustic waves},
author = {Jürgen Schiefele and Jorge Pedrós and Fernando Sols and Fernando Calle and Francisco Guinea},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1309.0767},
year = {2013}
}