Ultrahigh quality infrared polaritonic resonators based on bottom-up-synthesized van der Waals nanoribbons

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the fabrication of high-quality, bottom-up-synthesized -MoO3 nanoribbons that act as low-loss, hyperbolic infrared resonators with record-high quality factors, advancing infrared nanophotonics.

Contribution

It introduces a bottom-up synthesis method for -MoO3 nanoribbons with exceptional crystal quality, enabling high-Q phonon polaritonic resonators in the infrared range.

Findings

Achieved the highest quality factors for phonon polaritonic van der Waals structures to date.

Mapped hyperbolic resonances across four infrared spectral bands.

Demonstrated resonance modes beyond the tenth order.

Abstract

van der Waals nanomaterials supporting phonon polariton quasiparticles possess unprecedented light confinement capabilities, making them ideal systems for molecular sensing, thermal emission, and subwavelength imaging applications, but they require defect-free crystallinity and nanostructured form factors to fully showcase these capabilities. We introduce bottom-up-synthesized {\alpha}-MoO3 structures as nanoscale phonon polaritonic systems that feature tailorable morphologies and crystal qualities consistent with bulk single crystals. {\alpha}-MoO3 nanoribbons serve as low-loss hyperbolic Fabry-P\'erot nanoresonators, and we experimentally map hyperbolic resonances over four Reststrahlen bands spanning the far- and mid-infrared spectral range, including resonance modes beyond the tenth order. The measured quality factors are the highest from phonon polaritonic van der Waals structures to date. We anticipate that bottom-up-synthesized polaritonic van der Waals nanostructures will serve as an enabling high-performance and low-loss platform for infrared optical and optoelectronic applications.