2025/02/14 by Ryan A. Kowalski, Nicole Mueller, Kowalski, R. A. +38
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Nanowire Synthesis and Applications #Optics (physics.optics) #Photonic and Optical Devices
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2502.09909
openalex publication_date 2025/02/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The confinement of electromagnetic radiation to subwavelength scales relies on strong light-matter interactions. In the infrared (IR) and terahertz (THz) spectral ranges, phonon polaritons are commonly employed to achieve extremely subdiffractional light confinement, with much lower losses as compared to plasmon polaritons. Among these, hyperbolic phonon polaritons in anisotropic materials offer a highly promising platform for light confinement, which, however, typically plateaus at values of λ0/100, with λ0 being the free-space incident wavelength. In this study, we report on ultraconfined phonon polaritons in hafnium-based dichalcogenides with confinement factors exceeding λ0/250 in the terahertz spectral range. This extreme light compression within deeply sub-wavelength thin films is enabled by the unprecedented magnitude of the light-matter coupling strength in these compounds, and the natural hyperbolicity of HfSe2 in particular. Our findings emphasize the critical role of light-matter coupling for polariton confinement, which for phonon polaritons in polar dielectrics is dictated by the transverse-longitudinal optic phonon energy splitting. Our results demonstrate transition metal dichalcogenides as an enabling platform for THz nanophotonic applications that push the limits of light control.