Large and Tunable Optical Absorption in Quasi-Periodically Corrugated Graphene

Graphene is currently one of the notable players in the intense drive towards bendable, thin, and portable electronic displays. Given that the intrinsic transparency of a graphene monolayer is 97.7{\%}, any reproducible and controllable modulation of transparency can have a significant impact for graphene as a viable transparent conducting electrode. Here we demonstrate a large and tunable optical aborption modulation in large-scale CVD graphene by introducing quasi-periodic ripples using functional elastomer substrates. We find that the optical modulation is more than 15{\%} at visible wavelengths and moreover such optical modulation can be simultaneously tuned on and off by controlling the elastomer status. The simple device configuration and large tunability optical response of graphene demonstrated in this study can be very important towards novel ultra-thin optical polarizer devices applications.