Harvesting and storing laser energy with graphene-cu compound structure

Abstract

Graphene-metal compound structure has been reported as a novel and outstanding component used in electrical and optical devices. We report on a first-principles study of graphene-cu compound structure, showing its capacity of converting laser energy into electrical power and storing the harvested energy for a long time. A real-time and real-space time-dependent density functional method (TDDFT) is applied for the simulation of electrons dynamics and energy absorption. The laser-induced charge transfer from copper layer to graphene layer is observed and represented by plane-averaged electron difference and dipoles. The effects of laser frequency on the excitation energy and charge transfer are studied as well. The enhancement of C-C {\sigma}-bond and decreasing of electron density corresponding to {\pi}-bond within graphene layer indicate the way in which the transferred-charges are stored. In addition, the shift and oscillations of dipole along z-direction after the application of laser pulse offer a concept that the compound structure has the ability of storing the harvested energy for a long time.