Ultra-confined mid-infrared resonant phonon polaritons in van der Waals nanostructures

• DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aat7189
• Publication Date: 2018-06-15T18:15:44Z
• Authors: Michele Tamagnone; Antonio Ambrosio; Kundan Chaudhary; Luis A. Jauregui; Philip Kim; William L. Wilson; Federico Capasso
• Keywords: polaritons | boron nitrides | phonon polariton; Physics; SciAdv r-articles; 02 engineering and technology; 0210 nano-technology; 530; 7. Clean energy; Research Articles

Hexagonal boron nitride has been proposed as an excellent candidate to achieve subwavelength infrared light manipulation owing its polar lattice structure, enabling excitation of low-loss phonon polaritons with hyperbolic dispersion. We show that strongly hexagonal planar nanostructures can exhibit ultra-confined resonances and local field enhancement. investigate strong light-matter interaction in these nanoscale structures via photo-induced force microscopy, scattering-type scanning near-field optical Fourier transform spectroscopy, agreement numerical simulations. design nano-dipole antennas directly image the fields when bright- or dark-mode are excited. These modes deep subwavelength, strikingly, they be supported by arbitrarily small structures. believe play for a role similar plasmons noble metals at visible frequency, paving way new class efficient highly miniaturized nanophotonic devices.