Femtosecond photo-switching of interface polaritons in black phosphorus heterostructures

Abstract

The possibility of hybridizing collective electronic motion with mid-infrared (mid-IR) light to form surface polaritons has made van der Waals layered materials a versatile platform for extreme light confinement and tailored nanophotonics. Graphene and its heterostructures have attracted particular attention because the absence of an energy gap allows for plasmon polaritons to be continuously tuned. Here, we introduce black phosphorus (BP) as a promising new material in surface polaritonics that features key advantages for ultrafast switching. Unlike graphene, BP is a van der Waals bonded semiconductor, which enables high-contrast interband excitation of electron-hole pairs by ultrashort near-infrared (near-IR) pulses. We design a SiO${}_2$/BP/SiO${}_2$ heterostructure in which the surface phonon modes of the SiO${}_2$ layers hybridize with surface plasmon modes in BP that can be activated by photo-induced interband excitation. Within the Reststrahlen band of SiO${}_2$, the hybrid interface polariton assumes surface-phonon-like properties, with a well-defined frequency and momentum and excellent coherence. During the lifetime of the photogenerated electron-hole plasma, coherent polariton waves can be launched by a broadband mid-IR pulse coupled to the tip of a scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) setup. The scattered radiation allows us to trace the new hybrid mode in time, energy, and space. We find that the surface mode can be activated within ~50 fs and disappears within 5 ps, as the electron-hole pairs in BP recombine. The excellent switching contrast and switching speed, the coherence properties, and the constant wavelength of this transient mode make it a promising candidate for ultrafast nanophotonic devices.

References in corpus (19)

• Two Dimensional Atomic Crystals
• Van der Waals heterostructures
• Black phosphorus field-effect transistors
• High-mobility transport anisotropy and linear dichroism in few-layer black phosphorus
• Two-Dimensional Material Nanophotonics
• Gate-tuning of graphene plasmons revealed by infrared nano-imaging
• Optical nano-imaging of gate-tuneable graphene plasmons
• Isolation and characterization of few-layer black phosphorus
• Effective Passivation of Exfoliated Black Phosphorus Transistors against Ambient Degradation
• Graphene Plasmonics for Terahertz to Mid-Infrared Applications
• The Renaissance of Black Phosphorus
• Highly confined low-loss plasmons in graphene-boron nitride heterostructures
• Graphene on hexagonal boron nitride as a tunable hyperbolic metamaterial
• Infrared nanoscopy of Dirac plasmons at the graphene-SiO2 interface
• Accessing the transport properties of pristine few-layer black phosphorus by van der Waals passivation in inert atmosphere
• Ultrafast single-nanowire multi-terahertz spectroscopy with sub-cycle temporal resolution
• Black-Phosphorus Terahertz Photodetectors
• Ultrafast and Nanoscale Plasmonic Phenomena in Exfoliated Graphene Revealed by Infrared Pump-Probe Nanoscopy
• Ultrafast mid-infrared nanoscopy of strained vanadium dioxide nanobeams

Cited by in corpus (28)

• Nonthermal pathways to ultrafast control in quantum materials
• Plasmonics in Atomically-Thin Crystalline Silver Films
• Relative efficiency of polariton emission in two-dimensional materials
• Ultrafast imaging of polariton propagation and interactions
• Negative refraction in hyperbolic hetero-bicrystals
• HBN-encapsulated, graphene-based room-temperature terahertz receivers with high speed and low noise
• Exciton-Photonics: From Fundamental Science to Applications
• The Optical Properties and Plasmonics of Anisotropic 2-Dimensional Materials
• Plasmonics with two-dimensional semiconductors "beyond graphene": from basic research to technological applications
• Tailoring topological transition of anisotropic polaritons by interface engineering in biaxial crystals
• Roadmap for Photonics with 2D Materials
• Anisotropic Acoustic Plasmons in Black Phosphorus
• A Perspective on Recent Advances in Phosphorene Functionalization and its Application in Devices
• Quantifying nanoscale electromagnetic fields in near-field microscopy by Fourier demodulation analysis
• Observation of plasmon-phonon coupling in natural 2D graphene-talc heterostructures
• Layer-Resolved Absorption of Light in Arbitrarily Anisotropic Heterostructures
• $k\cdot p$ theory for phosphorene: Effective g-factors, Landau levels, and excitons
• Coulomb interactions and screening effects in few-layer black phosphorus: a tight-binding consideration beyond the long-wavelength limit
• Nano-imaging of the edge-dependent optical polarization anisotropy of black phosphorus
• Self-Organized Nanorod Arrays for Large-Area Surface-Enhanced Infrared Absorption
• Tailored nano-electronics and photonics with two-dimensional materials at terahertz frequencies
• Infrared nanoscopy down to liquid helium temperatures
• Effects of Dielectric Stoichiometry on the Photoluminescence Properties of Encapsulated WSe2 Monolayers
• Long-Term Environmental Stability of Nitrogen-Healed Black Phosphorus
• Floquet theory and computational method for the optical absorption of laser-dressed solids
• First-principles study of ultrafast dynamics of Dirac plasmon in graphene
• Strong plasmon-phonon splitting and hybridization in 2D materials revealed through a self-energy approach
• Second Harmonic Generation from Grating-Coupled Hybrid Plasmon-Phonon Polaritons