Plasmon-assisted resonant tunneling in graphene-based heterostructures

Abstract

We develop a theory of electron tunneling accompanied by carrier-carrier scattering in graphene - insulator - graphene heterostructures. Due to the dynamic screening of Coulomb interaction, the scattering-aided tunneling is resonantly enhanced if the transferred energy and momentum correspond to those of surface plasmons. We reveal the possible experimental manifestations of such plasmon-assisted tunneling in current-voltage curves and plasmon emission spectra of graphene-based tunnel junctions. We find that inelastic current and plasmon emission rates have sharp peaks at voltages providing equal energies, momenta and group velocities of plasmons and interlayer single-particle excitations. The strength of this resonance, which we call plasmaronic resonance, is limited by interlayer twist and plasmon lifetime. The onset of plasmon-assisted tunneling can be also marked by a cusp in the junction $I(V)$-curve at low temperatures, and the threshold voltage for such tunneling weakly depends on carrier density and persists in the presence of interlayer twist.