Reconfigurable hyperbolic polaritonics with correlated oxide metasurfaces

Authors

Neda Alsadat Aghamiri, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Georgia, Athens, GA
Guangwei Hu, CUNY Advanced Science Research CenterFollow
Alireza Fali, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Georgia, Athens, GA
Zhen Zhang, School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Jiahan Li, Tim Taylor Department of Chemical Engineering, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KN
Sivacarendran Balendhran, School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
Sumeet Walia, School of Engineering RMIT University Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Sharath Sriram, Functional Materials and Microsystems Research Group and the Micro Nano Research Facility RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
James H. Edgar, Tim Taylor Department of Chemical Engineering, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KN
Shriram Ramanathan, School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Andrea Alù, CUNY Advanced Science Research CenterFollow
Yohannes Abate, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Georgia, Athens, GAFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-3-2022

Abstract

Polaritons enable subwavelength confinement and highly anisotropic flows of light over a wide spectral range, holding the promise for applications in modern nanophotonic and optoelectronic devices. However, to fully realize their practical application potential, facile methods enabling nanoscale active control of polaritons are needed. Here, we introduce a hybrid polaritonicoxide heterostructure platform consisting of van der Waals crystals, such as hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) or alpha-phase molybdenum trioxide (α- MoO₃), transferred on nanoscale oxygen vacancy patterns on the surface of prototypical correlated perovskite oxide, samarium nickel oxide, SmNiO₃ (SNO). Using a combination of scanning probe microscopy and infrared nanoimaging techniques, we demonstrate nanoscale reconfigurability of complex hyperbolic phonon polaritons patterned at the nanoscale with high resolution. Hydrogenation and temperature modulation allow spatially localized conductivity modulation of SNO nanoscale patterns, enabling robust real-time modulation and nanoscale reconfiguration of hyperbolic polaritons. Our work paves the way towards nanoscale programmable metasurface engineering for reconfigurable nanophotonic applications.

Comments

This article was originally published in Nature Communications, available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32287-z

This work is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).