On-chip phonon-enhanced IR near-field detection of molecular vibrations

Bylinkin, Andrei ; Castilla, Sebastián ; Slipchenko, Tetiana M. ; Domina, Kateryna ; Calavalle, Francesco ; Pusapati, Varun-Varma ; Autore, Marta ; Casanova, Fèlix ; Hueso, Luis E. ; Martín-Moreno, Luis ; Nikitin, Alexey Y. ; Koppens, Frank H. L. ; Hillenbrand, Rainer

Resumen: Phonon polaritons – quasiparticles formed by strong coupling of infrared (IR) light with lattice vibrations in polar materials – can be utilized for surface-enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA) spectroscopy and even for vibrational strong coupling with nanoscale amounts of molecules. Here, we introduce and demonstrate a compact on-chip phononic SEIRA spectroscopy platform, which is based on an h-BN/graphene/h-BN heterostructure on top of a metal split-gate creating a p-n junction in graphene. The metal split-gate concentrates the incident light and launches hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs) in the heterostructure, which serves simultaneously as SEIRA substrate and room-temperature infrared detector. When thin organic layers are deposited directly on top of the heterostructure, we observe a photocurrent encoding the layer’s molecular vibrational fingerprint, which is strongly enhanced compared to that observed in standard far-field absorption spectroscopy. A detailed theoretical analysis supports our results, further predicting an additional sensitivity enhancement as the molecular layers approach deep subwavelength scales. Future on-chip integration of infrared light sources such as quantum cascade lasers or even electrical generation of the HPhPs could lead to fully on-chip phononic SEIRA sensors for molecular and gas sensing.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-53182-9

Año: 2024

Publicado en: Nature communications 15 (2024), 8907 [10 pp.]
ISSN: 2041-1723

Factor impacto JCR: 15.7 (2024)

Categ. JCR: MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES rank: 10 / 135 = 0.074 (2024) - Q1 - T1

Factor impacto CITESCORE: 23.4 - Physics and Astronomy (all) (Q1) - Multidisciplinary (Q1) - Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (all) (Q1) - Chemistry (all) (Q1)

Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 4.761 - Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (miscellaneous) (Q1) - Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous) (Q1) - Chemistry (miscellaneous) (Q1)

Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/AEI/CEX2023-001286-S
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/Q-MAD
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/785219 /EU/Graphene Flagship Core Project 2/GrapheneCore2
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/881603/EU/Graphene Flagship Core Project 3/GrapheneCore3
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MCIU/PID2020-Q1115221GB-C41

Tipo y forma: Article (Published version)