Search Results
Resonant terahertz light absorption by virtue of tunable hybrid interface phonon-plasmon modes in semiconductor nanoshells
2019, Nika, D.L., Pokatilov, E.P., Fomin, V.M., Devreese, J.T., Tempere, J.
Metallic nanoshells have proven to be particularly versatile, with applications in biomedical imaging and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. Here, we theoretically demonstrate that hybrid phonon-plasmon modes in semiconductor nanoshells offer similar advantages in the terahertz regime. We show that, depending on tm,n,nhe doping of the semiconductor shells, terahertz light absorption in these nanostructures can be resonantly enhanced due to the strong coupling between interface plasmons and phonons. A threefold to fourfold increase in the absorption peak intensity was achieved at specific values of electron concentration. Doping, as well as adapting the nanoshell radius, allowed for fine-tuning of the absorption peak frequencies.
High-temperature electromechanical loss in piezoelectric langasite and catangasite crystals
2021, Suhak, Yuriy, Fritze, Holger, Sotnikov, Andrei, Schmidt, Hagen, Johnson, Ward L.
Temperature-dependent acoustic loss Q−1 is studied in partially disordered langasite (LGS, La3Ga5SiO14) and ordered catangasite (CTGS, Ca3TaGa3Si2O14) crystals and compared with previously reported CTGS and langatate (LGT, La3Ga5.5Ta0.5O14) data. Two independent techniques, a contactless tone-burst excitation technique and contacting resonant piezoelectric spectroscopy, are used in this study. Contributions to the measured Q−1(T) are determined through fitting to physics-based functions, and the extracted fit parameters, including the activation energies of the processes, are discussed. It is shown that losses in LGS and CTGS are caused by a superposition of several mechanisms, including intrinsic phonon–phonon loss, point-defect relaxations, and conductivity-related relaxations.
Dynamically tuned non-classical light emission from atomic defects in hexagonal boron nitride
2019, Lazić, Snežana, Espinha, André, Yanguas, Sergio Pinilla, Gibaja, Carlos, Zamora, Félix, Ares, Pablo, Chhowalla, Manish, Paz, Wendel S., Palacios Burgos, Juan José, Hernández-Mínguez, Alberto, Santos, Paulo V., van der Meulen, Herko P.
Luminescent defects in hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) have recently emerged as a promising platform for non-classical light emission. On-chip solutions, however, require techniques for controllable in-situ manipulation of quantum light. Here, we demonstrate the dynamic spectral and temporal tuning of the optical emission from h-BN via moving acousto-mechanical modulation induced by stimulated phonons. When perturbed by the propagating acoustic phonon, the optically probed radiative h-BN defects are periodically strained and their sharp emission lines are modulated by the deformation potential coupling. This results in an acoustically driven spectral tuning within a 2.5-meV bandwidth. Our findings, supported by first-principles theoretical calculations, reveal exceptionally high elasto-optic coupling in h-BN of ~50 meV/%. Temporal control of the emitted photons is achieved by combining the acoustically mediated fine-spectral tuning with spectral detection filtering. This study opens the door to the use of sound for scalable integration of h-BN emitters in nanophotonic and quantum information technologies. © 2019, The Author(s).
Dissecting spin-phonon equilibration in ferrimagnetic insulators by ultrafast lattice excitation
2018, Maehrlein, Sebastian F., Radu, Ilie, Maldonado, Pablo, Paarmann, Alexander, Gensch, Michael, Kalashnikova, Alexandra M., Pisarev, Roman V., Wolf, Martin, Oppeneer, Peter M., Barker, Joseph, Kampfrath, Tobias
To gain control over magnetic order on ultrafast time scales, a fundamental understanding of the way electron spins interact with the surrounding crystal lattice is required. However, measurement and analysis even of basic collective processes such as spin-phonon equilibration have remained challenging. Here, we directly probe the flow of energy and angular momentum in the model insulating ferrimagnet yttrium iron garnet. After ultrafast resonant lattice excitation, we observe that magnetic order reduces on distinct time scales of 1 ps and 100 ns. Temperature-dependent measurements, a spin-coupling analysis, and simulations show that the two dynamics directly reflect two stages of spin-lattice equilibration. On the 1-ps scale, spins and phonons reach quasi-equilibrium in terms of energy through phonon-induced modulation of the exchange interaction. This mechanism leads to identical demagnetization of the ferrimagnet’s two spin sublattices and to a previously inaccessible ferrimagnetic state of increased temperature yet unchanged total magnetization. Finally, on the much slower, 100-ns scale, the excess of spin angular momentum is released to the crystal lattice, resulting in full equilibrium. Our findings are relevant for all insulating ferrimagnets and indicate that spin manipulation by phonons, including the spin Seebeck effect, can be extended to antiferromagnets and into the terahertz frequency range.
Nanowire-supported plasmonic waveguide for remote excitation of surface-enhanced Raman scattering
2014, Huang, Y., Fang, Y., Zhang, Z., Zhu, L., Sun, M.
Due to its amazing ability to manipulate light at the nanoscale, plasmonics has become one of the most interesting topics in the field of light-matter interaction. As a promising application of plasmonics, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has been widely used in scientific investigations and material analysis. The large enhanced Raman signals are mainly caused by the extremely enhanced electromagnetic field that results from localized surface plasmon polaritons. Recently, a novel SERS technology called remote SERS has been reported, combining both localized surface plasmon polaritons and propagating surface plasmon polaritons (PSPPs, or called plasmonic waveguide), which may be found in prominent applications in special circumstances compared to traditional local SERS. In this article, we review the mechanism of remote SERS and its development since it was first reported in 2009. Various remote metal systems based on plasmonic waveguides, such as nanoparticle-nanowire systems, single nanowire systems, crossed nanowire systems and nanowire dimer systems, are introduced, and recent novel applications, such as sensors, plasmon-driven surface-catalyzed reactions and Raman optical activity, are also presented. Furthermore, studies of remote SERS in dielectric and organic systems based on dielectric waveguides remind us that this useful technology has additional, tremendous application prospects that have not been realized in metal systems.
Temperature-dependent Raman investigation of rolled up InGaAs/GaAs microtubes
2012, Rodriguez, R.D., Sheremet, E., Thurmer, D.J., Lehmann, D., Gordan, O.D., Seidel, F., Milekhin, A., Schmidt, O.G., Hietschold, M., Zahn, D.R.T.
Large arrays of multifunctional rolled-up semiconductors can be mass-produced with precisely controlled size and composition, making them of great technological interest for micro- and nano-scale device fabrication. The microtube behavior at different temperatures is a key factor towards further engineering their functionality, as well as for characterizing strain, defects, and temperature-dependent properties of the structures. For this purpose, we probe optical phonons of GaAs/InGaAs rolled-up microtubes using Raman spectroscopy on defect-rich (faulty) and defect-free microtubes. The microtubes are fabricated by selectively etching an AlAs sacrificial layer in order to release the strained InGaAs/GaAs bilayer, all grown by molecular beam epitaxy. Pristine microtubes show homogeneity of the GaAs and InGaAs peak positions and intensities along the tube, which indicates a defect-free rolling up process, while for a cone-like microtube, a downward shift of the GaAs LO phonon peak along the cone is observed. Formation of other type of defects, including partially unfolded microtubes, can also be related to a high Raman intensity of the TO phonon in GaAs. We argue that the appearance of the TO phonon mode is a consequence of further relaxation of the selection rules due to the defects on the tubes, which makes this phonon useful for failure detection/prediction in such rolled up systems. In order to systematically characterize the temperature stability of the rolled up microtubes, Raman spectra were acquired as a function of sample temperature up to 300°C. The reversibility of the changes in the Raman spectra of the tubes within this temperature range is demonstrated.
Phononic-magnetic dichotomy of the thermal Hall effect in the Kitaev material Na2 Co2 TeO6
2023, Gillig, Matthias, Hong, Xiaochen, Wellm, Christoph, Kataev, Vladislav, Yao, Weiliang, Li, Yuan, Büchner, Bernd, Hess, Christian
The quest for a half-quantized thermal Hall effect of a Kitaev system represents an important tool to probe topological edge currents of emergent Majorana fermions. Pertinent experimental findings for α-RuCl3 are, however, strongly debated, and it has been argued that the thermal Hall signal stems from phonons or magnons rather than from Majorana fermions. Here, we investigate the thermal Hall effect of the Kitaev candidate material Na2Co2TeO6, and we show that the measured signal emerges from at least two components, phonons and magnetic excitations. This dichotomy results from our discovery that the longitudinal and transversal heat conductivities share clear phononic signatures, while the transversal signal changes sign upon entering the low-temperature, magnetically ordered phase. Our results demonstrate that uncovering a genuinely quantized magnetic thermal Hall effect in Kitaev topological quantum spin liquids such as α-RuCl3 and Na2Co2TeO6 requires disentangling phonon vs magnetic contributions, including potentially fractionalized excitations such as the expected Majorana fermions.
Femtosecond spectroscopy in a nearly optimally doped Fe-based superconductors FeSe0.5Te0.5 and Ba(Fe 1-xCox)2As2/Fe thin film
2014, Bonavolontà, C., Parlato, L., De, Lisio, C., Valentino, M., Pepe, G.P., Kazumasa, I., Kurth, F., Bellingeri, E., Pallecchi, I., Putti, M., Ferdeghini, C., Ummarino, G.A., Laviano, F.
Femtosecond spectroscopy has been used to investigate the quasi-particle relaxation times in nearly optimally doped Fe-based superconductors FeSe 0.5Te0.5 and optimally doped Ba-122 thin films growth on a Fe buffer layer. Experimental results concerning the temperature dependence of the relaxation time of such pnictides both in the superconducting state are now presented and discussed. Modelling the T-dependence of relaxation times an estimation of both electron-phonon constant and superconducting energy gap in the excitation spectrum of both Fe(Se,Te) and Ba-122 compounds is obtained.
Wavefunction of polariton condensates in a tunable acoustic lattice
2012, Cerda-Méndez, E.A., Krizhanovskii, D.N., Biermann, K., Hey, R., Skolnick, M.S., Santos, P.V.
We study the spatial coherence of polariton condensates subjected to coherent modulation by a one-dimensional tunable acoustic potential.We use an interferometric technique to measure the amplitude and phase of the macroscopic condensate wavefunction. By increasing the acoustic modulation amplitude, we track the transition from the extended wavefunction of the unperturbed condensate to a regime where the wavefunction is spatially modulated and then to a fully confined regime, where independent condensates form at the minima of the potential with negligible particle tunneling between adjacent sites.
Ultrafast nonlocal collective dynamics of Kane plasmon-polaritons in a narrow-gap semiconductor
2019, Charnukha, A., Sternbach, A., Stinson, H.T., Schlereth, R., Brüne, C., Molenkamp, L.W., Basov, D.N.
The observation of ultrarelativistic fermions in condensed-matter systems has uncovered a cornucopia of novel phenomenology as well as a potential for effective ultrafast light engineering of new states of matter. While the nonequilibrium properties of two- and three-dimensional (2D and 3D) hexagonal crystals have been studied extensively, our understanding of the photoinduced dynamics in 3D single-valley ultrarelativistic materials is, unexpectedly, lacking. Here, we use ultrafast scanning near-field optical spectroscopy to access and control nonequilibrium large-momentum plasmon-polaritons in thin films of a prototypical narrow-bandgap semiconductor Hg0.81Cd0.19Te. We demonstrate that these collective excitations exhibit distinctly nonclassical scaling with electron density characteristic of the ultrarelativistic Kane regime and experience ultrafast initial relaxation followed by a long-lived highly coherent state. Our observation and ultrafast control of Kane plasmon-polaritons in a semiconducting material using light sources in the standard telecommunications fiber-optics window open a new avenue toward high-bandwidth coherent information processing in next-generation plasmonic circuits.