Observation of Edge-Confined Acoustic Hyperbolic Polaritons in van der Waals Materials.

Tianning Zhang, Xiaojie Jiang, Xiaosheng Yang, Xinliang Zhang, Peining Li

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Article in Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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5 authors.

Tianning ZhangWuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics and School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.

Xiaojie JiangWuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics and School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.

Xiaosheng YangWuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics and School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7632-0401

Xinliang ZhangWuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics and School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.

Peining LiWuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics and School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.

Funding

Hubei Optical Fundamental Research Center HBO2025TQ005Innovation Fund of WNLONational Key Research and Development Program of China 2021YFA1201500National Key Research and Development Program of China 2024YFA1208500National Natural Science Foundation of China 62505104National Natural Science Foundation of China 62525504Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province 2022CFA053Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province 2024AFB030Scientific Research Innovation Capability Support Project for Young Faculty ZYGXQNJSKYCXNLZCXM-I17

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Hyperbolic polaritons (HPs) supported by van der Waals (vdW) materials enable exceptionally strong light-matter interactions through deep subwavelength confinement. This confinement can be further enhanced when a polaritonic mode couples to its mirror image in a metallic substrate, giving rise to acoustic hyperbolic polaritons (AHPs). While most previous studies have focused on volume-confined AHPs (v-AHPs), edge-confined AHPs (e-AHPs) remain experimentally elusive. Here, we provide the first near-field observation of e-AHPs by launching and imaging them in the prototypical sample of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) on a gold substrate. Unlike v-AHPs propagating inside hBN, these e-AHPs are guided along the hBN edges and exhibit shorter polariton wavelengths, as revealed by both near-field imaging and extracted dispersion relations. Enhanced vibrational strong coupling in e-AHPs, experimentally verified by monitoring molecular-induced near-field responses, demonstrates their suitability for high-sensitivity molecule detection. These distinctive properties establish e-AHPs as a promising platform for optical sensing and on-chip nanophotonic devices.

Indexed as

acoustic hyperbolic polaritonsedge‐confined modeslight–matter interactionmolecular sensing

Identifiers

PMID41486763

DOI10.1002/advs.202520556

PMCPMC12970239

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.