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Configurable phonon polaritons in twisted α-MoO3

Nature Materials volume 19, pages 1307–1311 (2020)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 28 July 2020

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Abstract

Moiré engineering is being intensively investigated as a method to tune the electronic, magnetic and optical properties of twisted van der Waals materials. Advances in moiré engineering stem from the formation of peculiar moiré superlattices at small, specific twist angles. Here we report configurable nanoscale light–matter waves—phonon polaritons—by twisting stacked α-phase molybdenum trioxide (α-MoO3) slabs over a broad range of twist angles from 0° to 90°. Our combined experimental and theoretical results reveal a variety of polariton wavefront geometries and topological transitions as a function of the twist angle. In contrast to the origin of the modified electronic band structure in moiré superlattices, the polariton twisting configuration is attributed to the electromagnetic interaction of highly anisotropic hyperbolic polaritons in stacked α-MoO3 slabs. These results indicate twisted α-MoO3 to be a promising platform for nanophotonic devices with tunable functionalities.

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Fig. 1: Real-space infrared nanoimages reveal the twisting tunability for phonon polaritons.
Fig. 2: FEM real-space simulation and electromagnetic theory of momentum-space (k-space) isofrequency dispersion of phonon polaritons in twisted α-MoO3.
Fig. 3: Electromagnetic interaction as the origin of twisting tunability for phonon polaritons.

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Data availability

All other data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The custom code employed in this work to perform all calculations is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Change history

  • 28 July 2020

    An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge helpful discussions with X. Jiang, J. Lin and T. Low. Work at Auburn University was supported by the Auburn University Intramural Grants Program and National Science Foundation under grant no. DMR-2005194. Work in P.J.-H.’s group was supported through AFOSR grant FA9550-16-1-0382 (fabrication), and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s EPiQS Initiative through grant GBMF4541 to P.J.-H. This work made use of the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center Shared Experimental Facilities supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) (grant number DMR-0819762). The work at Zhejiang University was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC) under grant numbers 61625502, 11961141010 and 61975176, the Top-Notch Young Talents Program of China, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Mingyuan Chen, Xiao Lin.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Materials Research and Education Center, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA

    Mingyuan Chen, Jialiang Shen & Siyuan Dai

  2. Interdisciplinary Center for Quantum Information, State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, ZJU-Hangzhou Global Science and Technology Innovation Center, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Xiao Lin & Hongsheng Chen

  3. Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Thao H. Dinh, Zhiren Zheng, Qiong Ma & Pablo Jarillo-Herrero

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  1. Mingyuan Chen
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Contributions

M.C. and X.L. contributed equally to this work. S.D. conceived the idea and designed the experiments. M.C. performed the optical experiments. T.D., Z.Z. and Q.M. prepared the samples. X.L. and H.C. developed the theory. M.C. and J.S. performed the simulation. M.C. and S.D. analysed the data. M.C., S.D. and X.L. wrote the manuscript, with input and comments from all authors. S.D., H.C. and P.J.-H. supervised the project.

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Correspondence to Siyuan Dai.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–10.

Supplementary Video 1

k-space isofrequency curve of twisted α-MoO3 in the range 0°–180°.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Numerical data used to generate Fig. 3g.

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Chen, M., Lin, X., Dinh, T.H. et al. Configurable phonon polaritons in twisted α-MoO3. Nat. Mater. 19, 1307–1311 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-020-0732-6

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