Emergence of tunable intersubband-plasmonpolaritons in graphene superlattices

On-demand modification of the electronic band structures of high-mobility two-dimensional(2D)materials is of great interest for various applications that require rapid tuning of electrical and optical responses of solid-state devices.Although electrically tunable superlattice(SL)potentials have been proposed for band structure engineering of the Dirac electrons in graphene,the ultimate goal of engineering emergent quasiparticle excitations that can hybridize with light has not been achieved.We show that an extreme modulation of one-dimensional(1D)SL potentials in monolayer graphene produces ladder-like electronic energy levels near the Fermi surface,resulting in optical conductivity dominated by intersubband transitions(ISBTs).A specific and experimentally realizable platform comprising hBN-encapsulated graphene on top of a 1D periodic metagate and a second unpatterned gate is shown to produce strongly modulated electrostatic potentials.We find that Dirac electrons with large momenta perpendicular to the modulation direction are waveguided via total internal reflections off the electrostatic potential,resulting in flat subbands with nearly equispaced energy levels.The predicted ultrastrong coupling of surface plasmons to electrically controlled ISBTs is responsible for emergent polaritonic quasiparticles that can be optically probed.Our study opens an avenue for exploring emergent polaritons in 2D materials with gate-tunable electronic band structures.

Nanopolaritonic second-order topological insulator based on graphene plasmons

Ultrastrong confinement,long lifetime,and gate-tunability of graphene plasmon polaritons(GPPs)motivate wide-ranging efforts to develop GPP-based active nanophotonic platforms.Incorporation of topological phenomena into such platforms will ensure their robustness as well as enrich their capabilities as promising test beds of strong light–matter interactions.A recently reported approach suggests an experimentally viable platform for topological graphene plasmonics by introducing nanopatterned gates—metagates.We propose a metagate-tuned GPP platform emulating a second-order topological crystalline insulator.The metagate imprints its crystalline symmetry onto graphene by modulating its chemical potential via field-effect gating.Depending on the gate geometry and applied voltage,the resulting two-dimensional crystal supports either one-dimensional chiral edge states or zero-dimensional midgap corner states.The proposed approach to achieving the hierarchy of nontrivial topological invariants at all dimensions lower than the dimension of the host material paves the way to utilizing higher-order topological effects for onchip and ultracompact nanophotonic waveguides and cavities.