Case Study: Birck Nanotechnology Center achieves tunable graphene plasmonics for next-generation optoelectronic devices with COMSOL

Birck Nanotechnology Center - Customer Case Study

The Birck Nanotechnology Center at Purdue, led by Alexander V. Kildishev, faced the challenge of designing tunable graphene–plasmonic devices while high‑quality, large‑area graphene fabrication remained limited. To capture the complex two‑dimensional physics of graphene and explore mid‑IR and near‑IR applications (sensors, photodetectors, modulators), the team turned to Comsol Multiphysics to simulate graphene natively as a 2D surface and guide device design.

Using Comsol Multiphysics (with the Wave Optics capabilities and surface‑current/time‑domain implementations), the researchers optimized graphene–metal nanoantenna structures, demonstrating tunable graphene‑assisted damping of plasmon resonances and dynamic control of Fano resonances—validating tunability experimentally, including resonance tuning at a 2 μm wavelength via ion‑gel gating. Comsol’s modeling reduced costly fabrication iterations, improved agreement between simulation and experiment, and delivered predictive, optimized designs for next‑generation tunable mid‑IR and near‑IR photonic devices for sensing, imaging, and communications.

Birck Nanotechnology Center

Alexander V. Kildishev

Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering