▎ 摘　　要

The optical properties of a graphene material are analyzed first and a novel graphene-metal hybrid plasmonic switching in the near-infrared band is demonstrated in this study. The proposed hybrid structure is composed of metal-insulator-metal (MIM) waveguides and a graphene material. The switching is achieved by controlling the gate voltage of the graphene sheet. The switch's functionality is verified by two-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation. As applications, two different plasmonic switch structures are presented. The graphene metal hybrid plasmonic structure may have potential applications in ultracompact integrated circuits and nanophotonic networks. (C) 2014 The Japan Society of Applied Physics