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Infrared phononic nanoantennas: Localized surface phonon polaritons in SiC disks

  • Letter
  • Special Topic Plasmonics
  • Published:
Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

The electromagnetic interaction of light with polar materials shows a sharp and well defined electromagnetic response in the infrared (IR) region that consists mainly of excitation of optical phonons. Similar to surface plasmons in the visible region, surface phonons can couple efficiently to infrared light in micron-sized antennas made of polar materials. We applied the boundary element method to calculating the infrared electromagnetic response of single SiC disks acting as effective infrared antennas as a function of different parameters such as disk size and thickness. We also analyzed the effect of locating a probing metallic tip near the SiC disk to scatter light in the proximity of the SiC disk, thereby obtaining new spectral peaks connected with localized modes between the tip and the SiC disk. We then further investigated their application in IR scanning probe microscopy. A near-field map of the phononic resonances enhances the understanding of the nature of the IR extinction peaks.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Physics, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Donostia-San Sebastián, 20018, Spain

    Mohamed Ameen

  2. Centro Mixto de Física de Materiales CSIC-UPV/EHU and Donostia International Physics Centre, San Sebastian, 20018, Spain

    Aitzol Garcia-Etxarri & Javier Aizpurua

  3. Nanooptics Group, CIC Nanogune Consolider, San Sebastian, 20018, Spain

    Martin Schnell & Rainer Hillenbrand

  4. Ikerbasque, Bilbao, 48011, Spain

    Rainer Hillenbrand

Authors
  1. Mohamed Ameen
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  2. Aitzol Garcia-Etxarri
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  3. Martin Schnell
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  4. Rainer Hillenbrand
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  5. Javier Aizpurua
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Javier Aizpurua.

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Ameen, M., Garcia-Etxarri, A., Schnell, M. et al. Infrared phononic nanoantennas: Localized surface phonon polaritons in SiC disks. Chin. Sci. Bull. 55, 2625–2628 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-010-4032-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-010-4032-4

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