Tracing terahertz plasmon polaritons with a tunable-by-design dispersion in topological insulator metaelements

Leonardo Viti; Chiara Schiattarella; Lucia Sichert; Zhengtianye Wang; Stephanie Law; Oleg Mitrofanov; Miriam S. Vitiello

doi:10.1038/s41377-025-01884-0

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Tracing terahertz plasmon polaritons with a tunable-by-design dispersion in topological insulator metaelements

Original Articles

- Tracing terahertz plasmon polaritons with a tunable-by-design dispersion in topological insulator metaelements
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 14, Issue 11, Pages: 3454-3461(2025)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.NEST, CNR-Istituto Nanoscienze and Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza San Silvestro 12, 56127 Pisa, Italy
  2.University of Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany
  3.Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA
  4.Materials Science and Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
  5.University College London, Electronic and Electrical Engineering, London WC1E 7JE, UK
- Author bio：
  
  Miriam S. Vitiello (miriam.vitiello@sns.it)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-025-01884-0
  CLC：
- Received：14 October 2024，
  
  Revised：2025-04-13，
  
  Accepted：04 May 2025，
  
  Published Online：26 August 2025，
  
  Published：30 November 2025
- Accepted：
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Viti, L. et al. Tracing terahertz plasmon polaritons with a tunable-by-design dispersion in topological insulator metaelements. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 3454-3461 (2025).
DOI：

Viti, L. et al. Tracing terahertz plasmon polaritons with a tunable-by-design dispersion in topological insulator metaelements. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 3454-3461 (2025). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-01884-0.

摘要

Abstract

Collective oscillations of massless charge carriers in two-dimensional materials—Dirac plasmon polaritons (DPPs)—are of paramount importance for engineering nanophotonic devices with tunable optical response. However

tailoring the optical properties of DPPs in a nanomaterial is a very challenging task

particularly at terahertz (THz) frequencies

where the DPP momentum is more than one order of magnitude larger than that of the free-space photons

and DDP attenuation is high. Here

we conceive and demonstrate a strategy to tune the DPP dispersion in topological insulator metamateria

ls. We engineer laterally coupled linear metaelements

fabricated from epitaxial Bi

with selected coupling distances with the purpose to tune their wavevector

by geometry. We launch and directly map the propagation of DPPs confined within coupled meta-atoms via phase-sensitive scattering-type scanning near-field nanoscopy. We demonstrate that the DPP wavelength can be tuned by varying the metaelements coupling distance

resulting in up to a 20% increase of the polariton wavevector Re(k

) in dimers and triplets with a 1 μm spacing

with reduced losses and a

50% increase of the polariton attenuation length.

关键词

Keywords

references

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