Atomic-scale photonic hybrids for mid-infrared and terahertz nanophotonics
Atomic-scale photonic hybrids for mid-infrared and terahertz nanophotonics
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DOI：
10.1038/nnano.2015.305
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发表时间：
2016-01-01
影响因子：
38.3
通讯作者：
Reinecke, Thomas L.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Caldwell, Joshua D.;Vurgaftman, Igor;Reinecke, Thomas L.
纳米光子学领域的重点是将光限制在纳米尺度上的能力，通常比光的波长小得多。目标是开发传统光学无法实现的基于光的技术。亚衍射限制可以使用表面等离子体激元（SPPs）或表面声子极化激元（SPhPs）来实现。SPP可以提供门可调谐的宽带响应，但遭受高光学损耗;而SPhP提供相对低损耗的晶体依赖的光学响应，但仅在窄光谱范围内，具有有限的主动可调谐性机会。在这里，从单层石墨烯和多层六方氮化硼异质结构的最新结果的动机，我们讨论的电磁混合物的潜力-将混合物的SPP和SPhPs的材料-克服个别极化激元的限制。此外，我们还提出了一种新型的原子尺度混合物-晶体混合物-其中两种或更多种原子尺度（类似于3纳米或更小）极性介电材料的混合物导致由混合光学声子产生的新材料的产生成分的行为，可能允许直接控制介电函数。这些原子级混合物扩展了中红外到太赫兹纳米光子学的材料工具包，并可以在纳米级上创建新型主动可调谐但低损耗的光学器件。
The field of nanophotonics focuses on the ability to confine light to nanoscale dimensions, typically much smaller than the wavelength of light. The goal is to develop light-based technologies that are impossible with traditional optics. Subdiffractional confinement can be achieved using either surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) or surface phonon polaritons (SPhPs). SPPs can provide a gate-tunable, broad-bandwidth response, but suffer from high optical losses; whereas SPhPs offer a relatively low-loss, crystal-dependent optical response, but only over a narrow spectral range, with limited opportunities for active tunability. Here, motivated by the recent results from monolayer graphene and multilayer hexagonal boron nitride heterostructures, we discuss the potential of electromagnetic hybrids - materials incorporating mixtures of SPPs and SPhPs - for overcoming the limitations of the individual polaritons. Furthermore, we also propose a new type of atomic-scale hybrid - the crystalline hybrid - where mixtures of two or more atomic-scale (similar to 3 nm or less) polar dielectric materials lead to the creation of a new material resulting from hybridized optic phonon behaviour of the constituents, potentially allowing direct control over the dielectric function. These atomic-scale hybrids expand the toolkit of materials for mid-infrared to terahertz nanophotonics and could enable the creation of novel actively tunable, yet low-loss optics at the nanoscale.