Temperature-sensitive hybridization of propagating and localized surface phonon polaritons in polar 4H-SiC nano-resonators

Abstract

Polar 4H-SiC nano-resonators can host localized surface phonon polaritons (SPhPs) with low optical loss and fully exploit light–matter interactions for promising nanophotonic applications such as surface-enhanced spectroscopies and thermal imaging. To expand the mid-infrared and infrared application spaces, a sound knowledge of temperature effect on infrared dielectric functions and SPhPs of 4H-SiC is required, yet it remains largely unexplored. Herein, we focus on exploiting the temperature influence on dielectric functions, hybridization of propagating and localized SPhPs, and tailed spectral radiation properties of 4H-SiC nanopillar arrays through spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) measurements as well as multiscale simulations. The 4H-SiC crystal is grown using the physical vapor transport method, and SE experiments measure infrared dielectric functions at temperatures between 300 and 800 K. Finite-element electromagnetic simulations confirm the emerged Monopole and transverse dipoles (TD1 and TD2) resonance modes in 4H-SiC nano-resonators, which agrees with the literature experiment. At high temperatures with strong lattice vibration, the amplitudes of resonant optical absorption peaks gradually decrease and the linewidths broaden, accompanied by the weakened electric resonances. First-principles calculations show that the anharmonic phonon scattering strengthens and less optical phonons are coupled to incident photons as temperature increases. Moreover, the propagating and localized SPhPs’ hybridization and spectral radiation properties of 4H-SiC nanopillar arrays can be largely tailed by modifying the morphology and incident angle of light. This work provides physical insights into the temperature-induced spectral tuning of 4H-SiC nano-resonators and helps exploit their applications in the high-temperature working conditions.