A research team led by Prof. JIANG Peng and Prof. BAO Xinhe in collaboration with Associate Prof. ZHOU Chuanyao and Prof. YANG Xueming from DICP as well as Prof. CAO Tun from Dalian University of Technology, investigated the plasmonic properties of Bi2Te3 nanoplates, observing and manipulating the visible edge plasmons in Bi2Te3 nanoplates. Their findings were published in Nano Letters.
Left: fs-PEEM image of an individual Bi2Te3 nanoplate under p-polarized laser illumination. Right: Line profile along the red line in left image. (Image by LU Xiaowei)
Bi2Te3, one of the most studied thermoelectric materials, has drawn great attention due to its fantastic topological properties.
Scientists observed the edge plasmon modes of Bi2Te3 in the visible spectral range using femtosecond laser pulse excited photoemission electron microscopy. They proposed that the interband transition-induced nonequilibrium carriers might play a key role for the formation of these plasmonic modes.
The observation of edge plasmon mode in Bi2Te3 not only experimentally demonstrates the possibility of visible plasmons in semiconducting materials beyond traditional noble metals, but also opens up a new avenue toward discovering exotic physical phenomena in quantum topological materials by multi-field modulation.
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), National Key Research and Development Program of China and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of Chinese Academy of Sciences. (Text by LU Xiaowei)
