Tailoring Phonon Polaritons in hBN with the Plasmonic Phase-Change Material In <sub>3</sub> SbTe <sub>2</sub>
Polaritons in van-der-Waals materials (vdWMs) promise high confinement and multiple tailoring options by resonators and launching structures which conventionally require cumbersome lithography techniques. Optical programming of phase-change materials (PCMs) offers fast and reconfigurable fabrication of these structures. As the plasmonic PCM In<sub>3</sub>SbTe<sub>2</sub> can be switched between a dielectric and metallic phase, In<sub>3</sub>SbTe<sub>2</sub> is promising for optical programming of metallic launching structures to tailor and confine polaritons in vdWMs. Here, we combine the vdWM hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) with In<sub>3</sub>SbTe<sub>2</sub> and optically program circular resonators for hBN's phonon polaritons into In<sub>3</sub>SbTe<sub>2</sub>. We investigate the polariton resonators with near-field optical microscopy. Demonstrating the reconfigurability, we decrease the resonator diameter to increase the confinement up to λ/39 and achieve a quality factor of 72. Finally, we fabricate a focusing structure for hBN's polaritons whose focal point we reconfigure. We promote In<sub>3</sub>SbTe<sub>2</sub> as a versatile platform for rapid prototyping of polariton optics in vdWMs.
Authors
- Christoph Stampfer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4958-7362)
- Lukas Conrads (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2840-1354)
- Alexander Rothstein (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5859-4997)
- Takashi Taniguchi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1467-3105)
- Thomas Taubner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0628-3043)
- Kenji Watanabe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3701-8119)
- Matthias Wuttig (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1498-1025)
- Yiheng Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2706-7147)
- Lina Jäckering (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-4639-5565)
- Dominique Malik
- Aaron Moos
Institutions
- Forschungszentrum Jülich (DE)
- National Institute for Materials Science (JP)
- Ernst Ruska Centre (DE)
- Health First (US)
- FZU ‒ Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (CZ)
- Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (DE)
- RWTH Aachen University (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nano Letters
- Published
- 2025-10-21
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c03325
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.95