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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 24: Plasmonics and Nanooptics III: Light-Matter Interaction and Spectroscopy

O 24.4: Talk

Tuesday, March 19, 2024, 11:15–11:30, MA 042

Direct programming of confined Surface Phonon Polariton Resonators with the plasmonic phase-change material In₃SbTe₂ — Lukas Conrads, Luis Schüler, Konstantin Wirth, Matthias Wuttig, and •Thomas Taubner — I. Institute of Physics (IA), RWTH Aachen University

Tailoring light-matter interaction is essential to realize nanophotonic components and can be achieved with surface phonon polaritons (SPhPs), an excitation of photons coupled with phonons of polar crystals. Ultra-confined resonances are observed by restricting the SPhPs to cavities. Phase-change materials (PCMs) enable non-volatile programming of these cavities based on a change in the refractive index [1]. Recently, the new plasmonic PCM In₃SbTe₂ (IST) was introduced which can be reversibly switched from an amorphous dielectric to a crystalline metallic state in the infrared to realize numerous nanoantenna geometries [2]. However, the application potential of IST to create and modify SPhP resonators has not been exploited yet. Here, we demonstrate direct programming of confined SPhP resonators by phase-switching IST on top of a polar silicon carbide crystal and investigate the strongly confined resonance modes with scanning near-field optical microscopy. Reconfiguring the size of the resonators themselves result in enhanced mode confinements up to a value of λ/35 [3]. This study is a first step towards rapid prototyping of reconfigurable SPhP resonators even with hyperbolic and anisotropic 2d materials.
[1] Wuttig et al., Nat. Photon. 11, 465 (2017) [2] Heßler et al., Nat. Commun. 12, 924 (2021) [3] Conrads et al. arXiv:2310.12841 (2023)

Keywords: Surface Phonon Polaritons; Phase-Change Materials; Local Addressing; SNOM; Cavities