Van der Waals materials for applications in nanophotonics

Numerous optical phenomena and applications have been enabled by nanophotonic structures. Their current fabrication from high refractive index dielectrics, such as silicon (Si) or gallium phosphide (GaP), pose restricting fabrication challenges while metals, relying on plasmons and thus exhibiting high ohmic losses, limit the achievable applications. An emerging class of layered, so-called van der Waals (vdW), crystals is presented as a viable nanophotonics platform in this work. The dielectric response of 11 mechanically exfoliated thin-film (20–200 nm) vdW crystals is extracted, revealing high refractive indices up to n = 5, pronounced birefringence up to Δn = 3, sharp absorption resonances, and a range of transparency windows from ultraviolet to near-infrared. Nanoantennas are subsequently fabricated on silicon dioxide (SiO2) and gold, utilizing the compatibility of vdW thin films with a variety of substrates. Pronounced Mie resonances are observed due to the high refractive index contrast on SiO2, leading to a strong exciton-photon coupling regime as well as largely unexplored high-quality-factor, hybrid Mie-plasmon modes on gold. Additional vdW-material-specific degrees of freedom in fabrication are further demonstrated by realizing nanoantennas from stacked twisted crystalline thin-films, enabling control of nonlinear optical properties, and post-fabrication nanostructure transfer, important for nano-optics with sensitive materials.