Hybrid Ghost Phonon Polaritons in Thin-Film Heterostructure

Qizhi Yan; Dunzhu Lu; Qiyu Chen; Xiao Luo; Ming Xu; Zhaowei Zhang; Xiaosheng Yang; Xinliang Zhang; Peining Li

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c04550

Hybrid Ghost Phonon Polaritons in Thin-Film Heterostructure

Nano Lett. 2024 Apr 17;24(15):4346-4353. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c04550. Epub 2024 Apr 8.

Authors

Qizhi Yan^{1

2}, Dunzhu Lu^{1

2}, Qiyu Chen^{1

2}, Xiao Luo³, Ming Xu³, Zhaowei Zhang^{1

2}, Xiaosheng Yang^{1

2}, Xinliang Zhang^{1

2

4}, Peining Li^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics and School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
² Optics Valley Laboratory, Hubei 430074, China.
³ School of Integrated Circuits, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074 China.
⁴ Xidian University, Xi'an 710126, China.

PMID: 38587212
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c04550

Abstract

Ghost phonon polaritons (g-PhPs), a unique class of phonon polaritons in the infrared, feature ultralong diffractionless propagation (>20 μm) across the surface and tilted wavefronts in the bulk. Here, we study hybrid g-PhPs in a heterostructure of calcite and an ultrathin film of the phase change material (PCM) In₃SbTe₂, where the optical field is bound in the PCM film with enhanced confinement compared with conventional g-PhPs. Near-field optical images for hybrid g-PhPs reveal a lemniscate pattern in the momentum distribution. We fabricated In₃SbTe₂ gratings and investigated how different orientations and periodicities of gratings impact the propagation of hybrid g-PhPs. As the grating period decreases to zero, the wavefront of hybrid g-PhPs can be dynamically steered by varying the grating orientation. Our results highlight the promise of hybrid g-PhPs with tunable functionalities for nanophotonic studies.

Keywords: calcite; high field confinement; hybrid ghost phonon polaritons; phase change material; tunable functionalities.