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Tsuneto, Makoto

Publications and source records attributed to Tsuneto, Makoto.

Landau-phonon polaritons in Dirac heterostructures

Polaritons are light-matter quasiparticles that govern the optical response of quantum materials at the nanoscale, enabling on-chip communication and local sensing. Here, we report Landau-phonon polaritons (LPPs) in magnetized charge-neutral graphene encapsulated in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). These quasiparticles emerge from the interaction of Dirac magnetoexciton modes in graphene with the hyperbolic phonon polariton modes in hBN. Using infrared magneto-nanoscopy, we reveal the ability to completely halt the LPP propagation in real space at quantized magnetic fields, defying the conventional optical selection rules. The LPP-based nanoscopy also tells apart two fundamental many-body phenomena: the Fermi velocity renormalization and field-dependent magnetoexciton binding energies. Our results highlight the potential of magnetically tuned Dirac heterostructures for precise nanoscale control and sensing of light-matter interaction.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Anomalous thermal effect in Zr Te 5 observed via photothermal measurements

In this study, we explore the magneto-thermoelectric power (MTP) of $ZrTe$ 5 , a canonical Dirac semimetal, through a novel photothermal technique. Unlike conventional thermoelectric studies that rely on on-chip heaters and are limited by fabrication processes, especially for stress-sensitive materials, our approach utilizes photothermal effects to induce temperature gradients. Our experiments, applying a magnetic field approximately parallel and transverse to the photocurrent detection direction, reveal that the photothermal method efficiently and reliably extracts both diagonal and off-diagonal components of the thermoelectric coefficient of $ZrTe$ 5 . Here, we observe that the longitudinal MTP reproduces features previously reported in thermal transport studies, while the photoinduced transverse MTP confirms the anomalous Nernst effect. This photothermal measurement technique opens new avenues for investigating transport properties in a wide range of quantum materials, both in 3D and 2D systems.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Infrared nano-imaging of Dirac magnetoexcitons in graphene

Magnetic fields can have profound effects on the motion of electrons in quantum materials. Two-dimensional electron systems subject to strong magnetic fields are expected to exhibit quantized Hall conductivity, chiral edge currents and distinctive collective modes referred to as magnetoplasmons and magnetoexcitons. Generating these propagating collective modes in charge-neutral samples and imaging them at their native nanometre length scales have thus far been experimentally elusive. Here we visualize propagating magnetoexciton polaritons at their native length scales and report their magnetic-field-tunable dispersion in near-charge-neutral graphene. Imaging these collective modes and their associated nano-electro-optical responses allows us to identify polariton-modulated optical and photo-thermal electric effects at the sample edges, which are the most pronounced near charge neutrality. Our work is enabled by innovations in cryogenic near-field optical microscopy techniques that allow for the nano-imaging of the near-field responses of two-dimensional materials under magnetic fields up to 7 T. In conclusion, this nano-magneto-optics approach allows us to explore and manipulate magnetopolaritons in specimens with low carrier doping via harnessing high magnetic fields.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy with Akiyama piezo-probes

Recent developments of the scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscope at cryogenic temperatures (cryogenic s-SNOM or cryo-SNOM) have led to many breakthroughs in the studies of low energy excitations in quantum materials. However, the simultaneous demands on vibration isolation, low base temperature, precise nano-positioning, and optical access make the construction of a cryo-SNOM a daunting task. Adding to the overhead space required for a cryo-SNOM is the atomic force microscopy control, which predominantly utilizes a laser-based detection scheme for determining the cantilever tapping motion. In this work, we provide an alternative and straightforward route to performing s-SNOM using metal-coated Akiyama probes, where the cantilever tapping motion is detected through a piezoelectric signal. We show that the Akiyama-based cryo-SNOM attains high spatial resolution, good near-field contrast, and is able to perform imaging with a significantly more compact system compared to other cryo-SNOM implementations. Our results firmly establish the potential of s-SNOM based on self-sensing piezo-probes, which can easily accommodate far-infrared wavelengths and high magnetic fields in the future.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Hybrid Machine Learning for Scanning Near-Field Optical Spectroscopy

The underlying physics behind an experimental observation often lacks a simple analytical description. This is especially the case for scanning probe microscopy techniques, where the interaction between the probe and the sample is nontrivial. Realistic modeling to include the details of the probe is always exponentially more difficult than its "spherical cow" counterparts. On the other hand, a well-trained artificial neural network based on real data can grasp the hidden correlation between the signal and sample properties. In this work, we show that, via a combination of model calculation and experimental data acquisition, a physics-infused hybrid neural network can predict the tip-sample interaction in the widely used scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscope. This hybrid network provides a long-sought solution for accurate extraction of material properties from tip-specific raw data. The methodology can be extended to other scanning probe microscopy techniques as well as other data-oriented physical problems in general.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Probing subwavelength in-plane anisotropy with antenna-assisted infrared nano-spectroscopy

Infrared nano-spectroscopy based on scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) is commonly employed to probe the vibrational fingerprints of materials at the nanometer length scale. However, due to the elongated and axisymmetric tip shank, s-SNOM is less sensitive to the in-plane sample anisotropy in general. In this article, we report an easy-to-implement method to probe the in-plane dielectric responses of materials with the assistance of a metallic disk micro-antenna. As a proof-of-concept demonstration, we investigate here the in-plane phonon responses of two prototypical samples, i.e. in (100) sapphire and x-cut lithium niobate (LiNbO 3 ). In particular, the sapphire in-plane vibrations between 350 cm–1 to 800 cm–1 that correspond to LO phonon modes along the crystal b- and c-axis are determined with a spatial resolution of < λ/10, without needing any fitting parameters. In LiNbO 3 , we identify the in-plane orientation of its optical axis via the phonon modes, demonstrating that our method can be applied without prior knowledge of the crystal orientation. Furthermore, our method can be elegantly adapted to retrieve the in-plane anisotropic response of a broad range of materials, i.e. subwavelength microcrystals, van-der-Waals materials, or topological insulators.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗