Polaritons in low-dimensional materials and their coupling characteristics

Abstract

Polaritons, i.e. new collective modes formed by the strong coupling between light and electrons, phonons, excitons, or magnons in matter, have recently received extensive attention. Polaritons in low-dimensional materials exhibit strong spatial confinement, high quality factor, and gate-tunability. Typical examples include gate-tunable graphene surface plasmon polaritons, high-quality hyperbolic phonon polaritons in hexagonal boron nitride, topological phonon polaritons in <i>α</i>-MoO_3, and one-dimensional Luttinger-liquid plasmon polaritons in carbon nanotubes. These unique properties make polaritons an excellent candidate for future nano-photonics devices. Further, these polaritons can significantly interact with each other, resulting in a variety of polariton-polariton coupling phenomena, greatly expanding their applications. In this review paper, we first introduce scanning near-field optical microscopy, i.e. the technique used to probe polaritons in low-dimensional materials, then give a brief introduction to the basic properties of polaritons. Next, we discuss in detail the coupling behavior between various polaritons. Finally, potential applications of polaritons coupling are proposed.