Ultra-Confinement of Polaritons in Single Atomic Layer Ag Photonic Quantum Dots

TL;DR

This paper introduces an analytical method to map confined polaritons in 2D heterostructures with sub-wavelength resolution, revealing ultra-confinement in Ag-based photonic quantum dots.

Contribution

An analytical approach is developed to analyze and map confined polaritons in 2D heterostructures with sub-wavelength precision, overcoming previous measurement challenges.

Findings

Polaritons are highly confined vertically (~λ/50) and laterally (~λ/40) in 2D metal structures.

The technique enables direct imaging and quantitative analysis of confined polaritons.

Application to SiC/2D-Ag/EG structures reveals significant light confinement in nanostructures.

Abstract

Light scattering by two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals heterostructures (vdWHs) is immense, especially given their infinitesimal volume, thus enabling strong light-matter interactions. Surface 2D polariton waves manifest through large concentration of electromagnetic field in vertical direction, normal to their propagation. By confining vdWH materials into 2D photonic shapes, one can manipulate and compress light in lateral directions. Scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy is a perfect tool for direct imaging of the propagating polaritons and studying the properties of confined polaritons in nanostructures. Though, thus far the quantitative analysis, such the wavelength extraction, has been challenged for confined polaritons by incapability of mapping of the wave period on sub-wavelength scale and difficulty of identifying an adequate substrate's "background" to subtract. Here, an analytical approach is developed to reveal the local propagation constant of confined polaritons under abovementioned constraints and map it with the sub-wavelength resolution. Applied to analysis of the SiC/2D-Ag/EG (epitaxial graphene) photonic nanostructures, the technique uncovered that the polaritons are highly confined in both vertical ($\sim\lambda$/50) and lateral directions ($\sim\lambda$/40) by 2D metal.