Resonant nanostructures for highly confined and ultra-sensitive surface phonon-polaritons

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15767-y
• Publication Date: 2020-04-20T10:03:07Z
• Authors: Alexander M. Dubr...; Bo Qiang; Teddy Salim; Donguk Nam; Nikolay I. Zheludev; Qi Jie Wang
• Keywords: Surface phonon

Abstract Plasmonics on metal-dielectric interfaces was widely seen as the main route for miniaturization of components and interconnect photonic circuits. However recently, ultra-confined surface phonon-polaritonics in high-index chalcogenide films nanometric thickness has emerged an important alternative to plasmonics. Here, using mid-IR near-field imaging we demonstrate tunable phonon-polaritons CMOS-compatible few-nm thick germanium silicon carbide. We show that Ge-SiC resonators with nanoscale footprint can support sheet edge modes excited at free space wavelength hundred times larger than their physical dimensions. Owing nature modes, sensitivity real-space polaritonic patterns provides pathway local detection interface composition change sub-nanometer level. Such deeply subwavelength are interest high-density optoelectronic applications, filters, dispersion control optical delay devices.