Programmable hyperbolic polaritons in van der Waals semiconductors
Abstract
The propagation of light within a material is usually well defined, with the propagation described by scattering and dispersion. In artificially designed metamaterials and in anisotropic layered materials, the dispersion can be hyperbolic, giving rise to subwavelength confinement of the light. Sternbach et al. show that the hyperbolic dispersion can be optically switched on and off on demand in the layered transition metal dichalcogenide tungsten diselenide (see the Perspective by Deng and Chen). Illuminating the material with ultrafast pulses of sub-bandgap light creates a transient waveguide, resulting in hyperbolic dispersion in the material. The ability to tune the dispersion characteristics on demand using optical pumping is an effective approach for developing ultrafast switching photonic devices and controlling the propagation of light on the nanoscale.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Feb 05, 2021
- Source ID
- 10.1126/science.abe9163
Entities
People
- A. Rikhter
- Aaron Sternbach
- B. Kim
- Baichang Li
- Daniel Rhodes
- Dmitri N. Basov
- James C. Hone
- Michael Fogler
- Peter James Schuck
- Richard D. Averitt
- Sang Hoon Chae
- Simone Latini
- Xiaodong Xu
- Xiaoyang Zhu
- Yinming Shao
- Ángel Rubio Secades
Organizations
- Columbia University
- European Research Council
- Flatiron Institute
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter
- National Research Foundation of Korea
- National Science Foundation
- United States Department of Energy
- University of California, San Diego
- University of Washington