Plasmon reflection reveals local electronic properties of natural graphene wrinkles

We systematically studied surface plasmons reflection by graphene wrinkles with different heights on SiC substrate. Combined with numerical simulation, we found that the geometry corrugation of a few nanometer height wrinkle alone does not causes a reflection of graphene plasmons. Instead, the separated wrinkle from substrate exhibits a nonlinear spatial Fermi energy distribution along the wrinkle, which acts as a heterojunction. Therefor a higher graphene wrinkle induces a stronger damped region when propagating graphene surface plasmons encounter the wrinkle and get reflected.