Tunable anisotropic van der Waals films of 2M-WS2 for plasmon canalization

Qiaoxia Xing; Jiasheng Zhang; Yuqiang Fang; Chaoyu Song; Tuoyu Zhao; Yanlin Mou; Chong Wang; Junwei Ma; Yuangang Xie; Shenyang Huang; Lei Mu; Yuchen Lei; Wu Shi; Fuqiang Huang; Hugen Yan

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-46963-9

Tunable anisotropic van der Waals films of 2M-WS₂ for plasmon canalization

Nat Commun. 2024 Mar 23;15(1):2623. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-46963-9.

Authors

Qiaoxia Xing^#¹, Jiasheng Zhang^#¹, Yuqiang Fang^#^{2

3}, Chaoyu Song^#¹, Tuoyu Zhao^{4

5}, Yanlin Mou¹, Chong Wang^{6

7}, Junwei Ma¹, Yuangang Xie¹, Shenyang Huang¹, Lei Mu¹, Yuchen Lei¹, Wu Shi^{4

5}, Fuqiang Huang^{8

9

10}, Hugen Yan¹¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano-Photonic Structures (Ministry of Education), Shanghai Key Laboratory of Metasurfaces for Light Manipulation, and Department of Physics, Fudan University, 200433, Shanghai, China.
² State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200050, Shanghai, China.
³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200240, Shanghai, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics and Institute for Nanoelectronic Devices and Quantum Computing, Fudan University, 200433, Shanghai, China.
⁵ Zhangjiang Fudan International Innovation Center, Fudan University, 201210, Shanghai, China.
⁶ Centre for Quantum Physics, Key Laboratory of Advanced Optoelectronic Quantum Architecture and Measurement (MOE), School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology, 100081, Beijing, China.
⁷ Beijing Key Lab of Nanophotonics & Ultrafine Optoelectronic Systems, School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology, 100081, Beijing, China.
⁸ State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200050, Shanghai, China. huangfq@mail.sic.ac.cn.
⁹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200240, Shanghai, China. huangfq@mail.sic.ac.cn.
¹⁰ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences and State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China. huangfq@mail.sic.ac.cn.
¹¹ State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano-Photonic Structures (Ministry of Education), Shanghai Key Laboratory of Metasurfaces for Light Manipulation, and Department of Physics, Fudan University, 200433, Shanghai, China. hgyan@fudan.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

In-plane anisotropic van der Waals materials have emerged as a natural platform for anisotropic polaritons. Extreme anisotropic polaritons with in-situ broadband tunability are of great significance for on-chip photonics, yet their application remains challenging. In this work, we experimentally characterize through Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy measurements a van der Waals plasmonic material, 2M-WS₂, capable of supporting intrinsic room-temperature in-plane anisotropic plasmons in the far and mid-infrared regimes. In contrast to the recently revealed natural hyperbolic plasmons in other anisotropic materials, 2M-WS₂ supports canalized plasmons with flat isofrequency contours in the frequency range of ~ 3000-5000 cm^-1. Furthermore, the anisotropic plasmons and the corresponding isofrequency contours can be reversibly tuned via in-situ ion-intercalation. The tunable anisotropic and canalization plasmons may open up further application perspectives in the field of uniaxial plasmonics, such as serving as active components in directional sensing, radiation manipulation, and polarization-dependent optical modulators.