Journal article
Complex Oxide Thin Films Towards Surface-Phonon-Polariton-Based Infrared Optoelectronics
Optical materials express, Vol.15(12), pp.3274-3288
12/01/2025
DOI: 10.1364/OME.576580
Abstract
Infrared nanophotonics offers enormous potential for enhancing infrared optoelectronic technologies, due to the ability to confine light to deeply sub-wavelength dimensions. One of the limitations of traditional nanophotonics approaches is the inherent losses present in the plasmonic materials that are conventionally used. Surface phonon polaritons offer a lower-loss alternative but are more difficult to integrate with conventional III-V-based semiconductors used for infrared optoelectronics. In this work, we examine the properties of complex oxides, which can be grown directly onto III-V semiconductors for the purpose of infrared light detection. We grow films of both SrTiO3 and BaTiO3 on GaAs using pulsed laser deposition, and examine their properties using a combination of X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and infrared reflectance spectroscopy. We find that the films grown exhibit good crystallinity with smooth, uniform surfaces, and with occasional minor misoriented grains. Their optical properties indicate higher losses than perfect single crystal substrates, but by less than a factor of two, with phonon Q factors of 18-60, which is favorable when compared with plasmonic materials. We then conduct numerical simulations, which show that these films can be used to create surface phonon polariton infrared detectors that outperform similar metallic gratings by a factor of four. Our results show that the integration of oxide materials with conventional semiconductors is a viable route to improving infrared detector technology, competitive with other nanophotonics approaches.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Complex Oxide Thin Films Towards Surface-Phonon-Polariton-Based Infrared Optoelectronics
- Creators
- Mohit PradhanChad GorgenCaleb WhittierChristopher RouleauEric BidekeRavitej UppuNabil BassimJohn PrineasThomas Folland
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Optical materials express, Vol.15(12), pp.3274-3288
- DOI
- 10.1364/OME.576580
- ISSN
- 2159-3930
- eISSN
- 2159-3930
- Publisher
- Optica Publishing Group
- Grant note
- National Science Foundation: 2318049 Alliance International Catalyst Quantum Grant: ALLRP 580935 - 22 Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS)
Here, we have proposed that infrared detectors can be enhanced by utilizing surface phonon polaritons supported through thin film oxides deposited on III-V substrates. To test this hypothesis, we have grown films of both STO and BTO on both epi-ready GaAs and GaAs with an MBE grown buffer and As cap. The oxide films crystallinity has been studied using RHEED, HRXRD, AFM, and STEM, revealing films with overall good crystallinity and uniformity, and with quality improved on the substrates prepared with the As cap compared to epi-ready surfaces. The optical properties of the films indicate phonon lifetimes that are worse than ideal single crystal oxides, but within a factor of two, suggesting they may be applicable for phonon polaritonics. Overall, the as-grown STO films had both better crystallinity and uniformity than the BTO films, and better optical properties due to lower phonon dephasing rates which are relevant for phonon polariton optoelectronics. Through our optical fits, we simulated a quantum well infrared detector to evaluate detector performance. We observe enhancement factors as high as 10x in the responsivity of the detector when integrated with the epitaxial oxide, comparable to what is possible assuming ideal material properties. This suggests that phonon polaritons in oxide thin films can be an effective option for enhancing infrared detectors. This opens new opportunities for phonon polaritonics in enhancing infrared optoelectronics. Funding. National Science Foundation (2318049) ; Alliance International Catalyst Quantum Grant (ALLRP 580935 - 22) . Acknowledgements. We acknowledge Mr. Hank Hammer for assistance in deposition of the samples. Film synthesis via pulsed laser deposition, and characterization via RHEED, XRD, and AFM were conducted as part of a user project at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) , which is a US Department of Energy, Office of Science User Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
- Language
- English
- Electronic publication date
- 11/10/2025
- Date published
- 12/01/2025
- Academic Unit
- Physics and Astronomy; Mechanical Engineering
- Record Identifier
- 9985027465602771
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