Tunable infrared surface phonon–plasmon coupling in graphene-integrated polar semiconductor heterostructure

Within Reststrahlen bands of polar semiconductors, surface phonon–plasmon coupling is of great interest in infrared nanophotonics. Here, we demonstrate an active long-wavelength infrared device of graphene integrated with an AlN/SiC polar heterostructure. As a low-loss dielectric design, the subwavelength structure device takes advantage of interfacial photogating effect on electrostatic doping of the graphene and the interfaced SiC, and the tunable spectral behavior is originated from the hybridization of the doping-dependent surface phonon–plasmon resonances. This finding provides a steady-state manipulating method to the surface modes for the low-loss nanophotonic devices on SiC platform, and the graphene Fermi level tunable to cross the Dirac point in a steady response even makes the intrinsic graphene photodetectors feasible.