We study the optical properties of double-layer graphene for linearly polarized evanescent modes and discuss the in-phase and out-of-phase plasmon modes for both, longitudinal and transverse polarization, and for inhomogeneous dielectric media. We find an energy for which reflection is zero, leading to exponentially amplified transmitted modes similar to what happens in left-handed materials. For layers with equal densities $n={10}^{12}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}$, we find a typical layer separation of $d\approx 500\mu \mathrm{m}$ to detect this amplification for transverse polarization, which may serve as an indirect observation of transverse plasmons. When the two graphene layers lie on different chemical potentials, the exponential amplification either follows the in-phase or the out-of-phase plasmon mode depending on the order of the low- and high-density layers. This opens up the possibility of a tunable near-field amplifier or switch.

• Received 2 December 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.85.075410