Femtosecond nano-imaging reveals ultrafast optical control of phonon polaritons
A collaborative research team has successfully visualized in real space the ultrafast optical modulation of hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs) in a van der Waals heterostructure composed of hBN and WS2. The research is published in the journal Nano Letters, and was led by Kazuki Kamada of the Institute for Molecular Science (IMS) and Osaka Metropolitan University, along with Dr. Jun Nishida,…
A research team has succeeded in visualizing in real space the ultrafast optical modulation of hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs) in van der Waals heterostructures composed of hBN and WS2, as reported by Phys.org. HPhPs are hybrid light-matter modes formed through strong coupling between infrared electromagnetic fields and optical phonons in a material, and their hybrid character allows them to coherently transport electromagnetic energy while confining it to spatial scales far below the wavelength of light in free space.
This makes HPhPs promising for nanoscale light manipulation, high-sensitivity spectroscopy, and future nanophotonic technologies. The team overcame the challenge of directly observing ultrafast control of HPhPs by introducing a diffraction grating into the detection path of an ultrafast infrared near-field optical microscope, which spectrally separated the broadband infrared light scattered from the probe tip of an atomic force microscope before detection.
This method preserved a temporal resolution of approximately 150 femtoseconds while achieving a spectral resolution of approximately 10 cm-1 together with nanoscale spatial resolution.
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