In-plane hyperbolic polariton tuners in terahertz and long-wave infrared regimes

Wuchao Huang; Thomas G Folland; Fengsheng Sun; Zebo Zheng; Ningsheng Xu; Qiaoxia Xing; Jingyao Jiang; Huanjun Chen; Joshua D Caldwell; Hugen Yan; Shaozhi Deng

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-38214-0

In-plane hyperbolic polariton tuners in terahertz and long-wave infrared regimes

Nat Commun. 2023 May 11;14(1):2716. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-38214-0.

Authors

Wuchao Huang^#¹, Thomas G Folland^#^{2

3}, Fengsheng Sun^#¹, Zebo Zheng^#¹, Ningsheng Xu^{1

4}, Qiaoxia Xing⁵, Jingyao Jiang¹, Huanjun Chen⁶, Joshua D Caldwell⁷, Hugen Yan⁸, Shaozhi Deng⁹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37235, USA.
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 52245, USA.
⁴ The Frontier Institute of Chip and System, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano-Photonic Structures (Ministry of Education), Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China. chenhj8@mail.sysu.edu.cn.
⁷ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37235, USA. Josh.caldwell@vanderbilt.edu.
⁸ State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano-Photonic Structures (Ministry of Education), Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China. hgyan@fudan.edu.cn.
⁹ State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China. stsdsz@mail.sysu.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

One of the main bottlenecks in the development of terahertz (THz) and long-wave infrared (LWIR) technologies is the limited intrinsic response of traditional materials. Hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs) of van der Waals semiconductors couple strongly with THz and LWIR radiation. However, the mismatch of photon - polariton momentum makes far-field excitation of HPhPs challenging. Here, we propose an In-Plane Hyperbolic Polariton Tuner that is based on patterning van der Waals semiconductors, here α-MoO₃, into ribbon arrays. We demonstrate that such tuners respond directly to far-field excitation and give rise to LWIR and THz resonances with high quality factors up to 300, which are strongly dependent on in-plane hyperbolic polariton of the patterned α-MoO₃. We further show that with this tuner, intensity regulation of reflected and transmitted electromagnetic waves, as well as their wavelength and polarization selection can be achieved. Our results can help the development of THz and LWIR miniaturized devices.

Abstract

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