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Tailoring optical and radiative properties has attracted significant attention recently due to its importance in advanced energy systems, nanophotonics, electro-optics, and nanomanufacturing. Metamaterials with micro- and nanostructures exhibit exotic radiative properties with tunability across the spectrum, direction, and polarization. Structures made from anisotropic or nanostructured materials have shown polarization-selective absorption bands in the mid-infrared. Characterizing the optical and radiative properties of such materials is crucial for both fundamental research and the development of practical applications. Mueller matrix ellipsometry offers a nondestructive and noninvasive technique for characterizing radiative properties. Although such ellipsometers have long been used to measure optical properties, their operational bandwidth is usually limited to the visible to near-infrared range, leaving the mid-infrared largely unexplored. In this work, a broadband mid-infrared ellipsometer, operating from 2 to 15 μm, is designed and constructed to measure 12 elements of the Mueller matrix. The results may be used to determine the full Mueller matrix under specific conditions. The performance of the ellipsometer is evaluated using nanostructured materials, including a 1D grating and a chiral F-shaped metasurface. The measurement results compared well to those obtained from rigorous-coupled-wave analysis and finite-difference time-domain simulations, suggesting that this setup offers a useful tool in optical property retrieval and the assessment of nanostructured materials. 

Abstract Anisotropic planar polaritons - hybrid electromagnetic modes mediated by phonons, plasmons, or excitons - in biaxial two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals crystals have attracted significant attention due to their fundamental physics and potential nanophotonic applications. In this Perspective, we review the properties of planar hyperbolic polaritons and the variety of methods that can be used to experimentally tune them. We argue that such natural, planar hyperbolic media should be fairly common in biaxial and uniaxial 2D and 1D van der Waals crystals, and identify the untapped opportunities they could enable for functional (i.e. ferromagnetic, ferroelectric, and piezoelectric) polaritons. Lastly, we provide our perspectives on the technological applications of such planar hyperbolic polaritons. 

Germanium is typically used for solid-state electronics, fiber-optics, and infrared applications, due to its semiconducting behavior at optical and infrared wavelengths. In contrast, here we show that the germanium displays metallic nature and supports propagating surface plasmons in the deep ultraviolet (DUV) wavelengths, that is typically not possible to achieve with conventional plasmonic metals such as gold, silver, and aluminum. We measure the photonic band spectrum and distinguish the plasmonic excitation modes: bulk plasmons, surface plasmons, and Cherenkov radiation using a momentum-resolved electron energy loss spectroscopy. The observed spectrum is validated through the macroscopic electrodynamic electron energy loss theory and first-principles density functional theory calculations. In the DUV regime, intraband transitions of valence electrons dominate over the interband transitions, resulting in the observed highly dispersive surface plasmons. We further employ these surface plasmons in germanium to design a DUV radiation source based on the Smith-Purcell effect. Our work opens a new frontier of DUV plasmonics to enable the development of DUV devices such as metasurfaces, detectors, and light sources based on plasmonic germanium thin films. 

Extreme skin depth engineering (e-skid) can be applied to integrated photonics to manipulate the evanescent field of a waveguide. Here we demonstrate thate-skidcan be implemented in two directions in order to deterministically engineer the evanescent wave allowing for dense integration with enhanced functionalities. In particular, by increasing the skin depth, we enable the creation of two-dimensional (2D)e-skiddirectional couplers with large gaps and operational bandwidth. Here we experimentally validate 2De-skidfor integrated photonics in a complementary metal–oxide semiconductor (CMOS) photonics foundry and demonstrate strong coupling with a gap of 1.44 µm.