Recently, in-plane biaxial hyperbolicity has been observed in $α$-MoO${_3}$ --a van der Waal crystal-- in the mid-infrared frequency regime. Here, we present a comprehensive theoretical analysis of thin film $α$-MoO${_3}$ for application to two mid-IR photonic devices -- a polarizer and a waveplate. We show the possibility of a significant reduction in the device footprint while maintaining an enormous extinction ratio from $α$-MoO${_3}$ based polarizers in comparison with that of conventional polarizers. Secondly, we carry out device optimization of $α$-MoO${_3}$ based waveplates with subwavelength thickness. We explain our results using natural in-plane hyperbolicity of $α$-MoO${_3}$ via analytical and full wave simulations. This work will build a foundation for miniaturization of mid-infrared photonic devices by exploiting the optical anisotropy of $α$-MoO${_3}$.
The recent discovery of natural biaxial hyperbolicity in van der Waals crystals, such as $α$-MoO$_3$, has opened up new avenues for mid-IR nanophotonics due to their deep subwavelength phonon-polaritons. However, a significant challenge is the lack of active tunability of these hyperbolic phonon polaritons. In this work, we investigate heterostructures of graphene and $α$-MoO$_3$ for actively tunable hybrid plasmon phonon polariton modes via electrostatic gating in the mid-infrared spectral region. We observe a unique propagation direction dependent hybridization of graphene plasmon polaritons…
Negative reflection and negative refraction are exotic phenomena that can be achieved by platforms such as double-negative metamaterial, hyperbolic metamaterial, and phase-discontinuity metasurface. Recently, natural biaxial van der Waals (vdW) materials, which support extremely anisotropic, low-loss, and highly confined polaritons from infrared to visible regime, are emerging as promising candidates for planar reflective and refractive optics. Here, we introduce three degrees of freedom, namely interface, crystal direction, and electric tunability to manipulate the reflection and refraction o…
Hyperbolic media have attracted much attention in the photonics community, thanks to their ability to confine light to arbitrarily small volumes and to their use for super-resolution applications. The 2D counterpart of these media can be achieved with hyperbolic metasurfaces, which support in-plane hyperbolic guided modes thanks to nanopatterns which, however, pose significant fabrication challenges and limit the achievable confinement. We show that thin flakes of the van der Waals material α-MoO3 can support naturally in-plane hyperbolic polariton guided modes at mid-infrared frequencies with…
As a natural van der Waals crystal, α-MoO3 has excellent in-plane hyperbolic properties and essential nanophotonics applications. However, its actively tunable properties are generally neglected. In this work, we achieved active modulation of spontaneous emission from a single-layer flat plate using the rotation method for the first time. Numerical results and theoretical analysis show that α-MoO3 exhibits good tunability when rotated in the y-z or x-y plane. A modulation factor of more than three orders of magnitude can be obtained at 634 cm-1. However, when the rotation is in the x-z plane, …
Anisotropic crystals have recently attracted considerable attention because of their ability to support polaritons with a variety of unique properties, such as hyperbolic dispersion, negative phase velocity, or extreme confinement. Particularly, the biaxial crystal $α$-MoO$_3$ has been demonstrated to support phonon polaritons, light coupled to lattice vibrations, with in-plane anisotropic propagation and unusually long lifetime. However, the lack of theoretical studies on electromagnetic modes in biaxial crystal slabs impedes a complete interpretation of the experimental data, as well as an e…
Near-field imaging has emerged as a reliable probe of the dielectric function of van der Waals crystals. In principle, analyzing the propagation patterns of subwavelength waveguide modes (WMs) allows for extraction of the full dielectric tensor. Yet previous studies have mostly been restricted to high-symmetry materials or narrowband probing. Here, we resolve in-plane anisotropic WMs in thin rhenium disulfide (ReS2) crystals across a wide range of near-infrared frequencies. By tracing the evolution of these modes as a function of crystallographic direction, polarization of the electric field a…
Polaritons - hybrid light-mater excitations - are very appealing for the confinement of light at the nanoscale. Recently, different kinds of polaritons have been observed in thin slabs of van der Waals (vdW) materials, with particular interest focused on phonon polaritons (PhPs) - lattice vibrations coupled to electromagnetic fields in the mid-infrared spectral range with - in biaxial crystals, such as e.g. MoO3. In particular, hyperbolic PhPs - having hyperbola-like shape of their isofrequency curves - in MoO3 can exhibit ultra-high momenta and strongly directional in-plane propagation, promi…
Active tuning of highly anisotropic phonon polaritons in van der Waals crystal slabs by gated graphene
University of Oviedo（奥维耶多大学）；Center of Research on Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, CINN (CSIC-Universidad de Oviedo)（纳米材料与纳米技术研究中心，CINN（CSIC-奥维耶多大学））；Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC)（圣塞巴斯蒂安国际物理中心）；Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology（莫斯科物理与技术学院）；IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science（伊克尔巴斯基克，巴斯克科学基金会）
Two-dimensional van der Waals (vdW) crystals can sustain various types of polaritons with strong electromagnetic confinements, making them highly attractive for the nanoscale photonic and optoelectronic applications. While extensive experimental and numerical studies are devoted to the polaritons of the vdW crystals, analytical models are sparse. Particularly, applying such a model to describe the polariton behaviors visualized by state-of-art near-field optical microscopy requires further investigation. Herein, we develop an analytical waveguide model to describe the polariton propagations in…
Traditionally, efforts to achieve perfect absorption have required the use of complicated metamaterial-based structures as well as relying on destructive interference to eliminate back reflections. Here, we have demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally that such perfect absorption can be achieved using a naturally occurring material, hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) due to its high optical anisotropy without the requirement of interference effects to absorb the incident field. This effect was observed for p-polarized light within the mid-infrared spectral range, and we provide the full …
Hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs) sustained in van der Waals (vdW) materials exhibit extraordinary capabilities of confining long-wave electromagnetic fields to the deep subwavelength scale. In stark contrast to the uniaxial vdW hyperbolic materials such as hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), the recently emerging biaxial hyperbolic materials such as α-MoO3 and α-V2O5 further bring new degree of freedoms in controlling light at the flatland, due to their distinctive in-plane hyperbolic dispersion. However, the controlling and focusing of such in-plane HPhPs are to date remain elusive. Here, we …
The mechanical action on matter of the electromagnetic field emitted by a fluctuating source is governed by its statistics. In particular, thermal sources and vacuum fluctuations exert on bodies those well-known Casimir (C) and Van der Waals (VdW) forces. However, we have recently demonstrated that partially coherent random electromagnetic fields emitted by tailored optical sources, induce a photonic force on particles which, in particular, may be equivalent to those of Van der Waals and Casimir.
Magnetically induced topological transitions of isofrequency surfaces of bulk waves propagating through an unbounded biaxial gyrotropic medium are studied. The medium is constructed from a two-component superlattice composed of magnetized ferrite and semiconductor layers. To derive the constitutive parameters of the gyrotropic medium, a homogenization procedure from the effective medium theory is applied. The study is carried out in the frequency range near the frequency of ferromagnetic resonance, where the magnetic subsystem possesses the properties of natural hyperbolic dispersion. The topo…
Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) integrated to photonic structures provide an intriguing playground for the development of novel optoelectronic devices with improved performance. Here, we show the enhanced light emission from TMDC based van der Waals heterostructures through coupling with microsphere cavities. We observe cavity-induced emission enhancement of TMDC materials which varies by an order of magnitude, depending on the size of the microsphere and thickness of the supporting oxide substrate. Furthermore, we demonstrate microsphere cavity-enhanced electrolumines…
We report experimental measurements for ultrathin (< 15 nm) van der Waals heterostructures exhibiting external quantum efficiencies exceeding 50%, and show that these structures can achieve experimental absorbance > 90%. By coupling electromagnetic simulations and experimental measurements, we show that pn WSe2/MoS2 heterojunctions with vertical carrier collection can have internal photocarrier collection efficiencies exceeding 70%.
The multi-scale computational method of combining first-principles calculation and finite element electromagnetic simulations is used to study plasmon-enhanced interlayer charge transfer (ICT) exciton of 2D lateral and van der Waals MoS2/WS2 heterostructure with 2H phase. The weak ICT excitons are observed in the 2H lateral and van der Waals MoS$_2$/WS$_2$ heterostructures. Theoretical results reveal the physical principle of plexciton resulting from strong coupling between plasmonic and ICT exciton. The weak CT exciton can be strongly enhanced by metal plasmon, can provide a new way to observ…
