Cavity electrodynamics of van der Waals heterostructures
Van der Waals heterostructures host many-body quantum phenomena that are tunable in situ using electrostatic gates. Their constituent two-dimensional materials and gates can naturally form plasmonic self-cavities, confining light in standing waves of current density due to finite-size effects. The plasmonic resonances of typical graphite gates fall in the gigahertz to terahertz range, corresponding to the same microelectronvolt to millielectronvolt energy scale as the phenomena in van der Waals heterostructures that they electrically control. This raises the possibility that the built-in cavity modes of graphite gates are relevant for shaping the low-energy physics of these heterostructures. However, probing these cavity-coupled electrodynamics is challenging as devices are notably smaller than the diffraction limit at the relevant wavelengths. Here we report on the intrinsic cavity conductivity of gate-tunable graphene heterostructures. As the carrier density is tuned, we observe coupling and spectral weight transfer between graphene and graphite plasmonic cavity modes in the ultrastrong coupling regime. We present an analytical model to describe the results and provide general principles for cavity design. Our findings show that intrinsic cavity effects are important for understanding the low-energy electrodynamics of van der Waals heterostructures and open a pathway for useful functionality through cavity control.
Authors
- Christian Eckhardt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1011-4821)
- Dante Marvin Kennes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9838-6866)
- Yunfei Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6519-3171)
- Felix Sturm (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-8988-6099)
- Alexander M. Potts (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3502-1701)
- Marios H. Michael (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4579-8792)
- T. Matsuyama (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7878-7374)
- Hope Bretscher (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6551-4721)
- Emmanuel Baudin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3694-9640)
- Benedikt Schulte (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7605-0547)
- Takashi Taniguchi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1467-3105)
- Kenji Watanabe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3701-8119)
- Matthew W. Day (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2276-0831)
- Guido Meier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5618-2155)
- Ángel Rubio (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2060-3151)
- James McIver (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0182-5031)
- Michael A. Sentef (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7946-0282)
- Gunda Kipp
- Sara Maria Langner
- Jesse Hagelstein
- Kateryna Kusyak
- Xinyu Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4345-6270)
- D. B. Herrmann
- Sivasruthi Kesavan
Institutions
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Universität Hamburg (DE)
- University of Bremen (DE)
- Institut Universitaire de France (FR)
- Université Paris Cité (FR)
- National Institute for Materials Science (JP)
- Sorbonne Université (FR)
- Sorbonne Paris Cité (FR)
- École Normale Supérieure (BI)
- Institute for Applied Systems Technology Bremen (DE)
- Simons Foundation (US)
- European Theoretical Spectroscopy Facility (BE)
- Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (DE)
- Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (DE)
- Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (DE)
- Columbia University (US)
- RWTH Aachen University (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Physics
- Published
- 2025-10-20
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-025-03064-8
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Strong Light-Matter Interactions
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.25
Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung
- Flatiron Health
- European Commission
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
- Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Office of Science
- Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
- Basic Energy Sciences
- Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology