Negative refraction in hyperbolic hetero-bicrystals

Science. 2023 Feb 10;379(6632):555-557. doi: 10.1126/science.adf1065. Epub 2023 Feb 9.

Abstract

We visualized negative refraction of phonon polaritons, which occurs at the interface between two natural crystals. The polaritons-hybrids of infrared photons and lattice vibrations-form collimated rays that display negative refraction when passing through a planar interface between the two hyperbolic van der Waals materials: molybdenum oxide (MoO3) and isotopically pure hexagonal boron nitride (h11BN). At a special frequency ω0, these rays can circulate along closed diamond-shaped trajectories. We have shown that polariton eigenmodes display regions of both positive and negative dispersion interrupted by multiple gaps that result from polaritonic-level repulsion and strong coupling.