Twisted Nano-optics: Manipulating Light at the Nanoscale with Twisted Phonon Polaritonic Slabs

Abstract

Recent discoveries have shown that when two layers of van der Waals (vdW) materials are superimposed with a relative twist angle between their respective in-plane principal axes, the electronic properties of the coupled system can be dramatically altered. Here, we demonstrate that a similar concept can be extended to the optics realm, particularly to propagating polaritons, hybrid light-matter interactions. To do this, we fabricate stacks composed of two twisted slabs of a polar vdW crystal (MoO3) supporting low-loss anisotropic phonon polaritons (PhPs), and image the propagation of the latter when launched by localized sources (metal antennas). Our images reveal that under a critical angle the PhPs isofrequency curve (determining the PhPs momentum at a fixed frequency) undergoes a topological transition. Remarkably, at this angle, the propagation of PhPs is strongly guided along predetermined directions (canalization regime) with no geometrical spreading (diffraction-less). These results demonstrate a new degree of freedom (twist angle) for controlling the propagation of polaritons at the nanoscale with potential for nano-imaging, (bio)-sensing, quantum applications and heat management.

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Cited by in corpus (37)

• Configure polaritons in twisted $\alpha$-MoO3
• Enhanced Light-Matter Interaction in Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenides
• Doping-driven topological polaritons in graphene/α-MoO3 heterostructures
• Nanoscale-confined Terahertz Polaritons in a van der Waals Crystal
• Multiple and spectrally robust photonic magic angles in reconfigurable α-MoO3 trilayers
• Enabling propagation of anisotropic polaritons along forbidden directions via a topological transition
• Tailoring topological transition of anisotropic polaritons by interface engineering in biaxial crystals
• Roadmap for Photonics with 2D Materials
• Bilayer Photonic Graphene
• Active tuning of highly anisotropic phonon polaritons in van der Waals crystal slabs by gated graphene
• A perspective of twisted photonic structures
• Giant and tunable excitonic optical anisotropy in single-crystal CsPbX${}_3$ halide perovskites
• In-plane hyperbolic polariton tuners in terahertz and long-wave infrared regimes
• Two-dimensional natural hyperbolic materials: From polaritons modulation to applications
• Direct programming of confined Surface Phonon Polariton Resonators using the plasmonic Phase-Change Material In${}_3$SbTe${}_2$
• Germanium monosulfide as a natural platform for highly anisotropic THz polaritons
• Unidirectional Ray Polaritons in Twisted Asymmetric Stacks
• Tunable optical topological transitions of plasmon polaritons in WTe2 van der Waals films
• Imaging Anisotropic Waveguide Exciton Polaritons in Tin Sulfide
• Fourier modal method for Moiré lattices
• Plasmonic modes at inclined edges of anisotropic 2D materials
• Polaritonic Quantum Matter
• Chiral photonic super-crystals based on helical van der Waals homostructures
• Twist-tunable moiré optical resonances
• Emerging chiral optics from chiral interfaces
• Twisted polaritonic crystals in thin van der Waals slabs
• Layer-Resolved Resonance Intensity of Evanescent Polariton Modes in Anisotropic Multilayers
• Canalization acoustic phonon polaritons in metal-MoO3-metal sandwiched structures for nano-light guiding and manipulation
• Modeling the optical properties of Twisted Bilayer Photonic Crystals
• Twist-angle and thickness-ratio tuning of plasmon polaritons in twisted bilayer van der Waals films
• Fourier analysis of near-field patterns generated by propagating polaritons
• Misalignment between the Directions of Propagation and Decay of Nanoscale-confined Polaritons
• Retrieving optical parameters of emerging van der Waals flakes
• Tunable hyperbolic Landau-level polaritons in charge-neutral graphene nanoribbon metasurfaces
• Long-range mid-infrared energy transfer mediated by hyperbolic phonon polaritons
• Canalized hyperbolic magnetoexciton polaritons enabled by the Shubnikov-de Haas effect in van der Waals semiconductors
• Photonic and plasmonic transition radiation from graphene