由美国海军研究实验室（NRL）领导的一个物理学家小组展示了改善六角形氮化硼器件的光学损耗特性和传输效率的方法，从而使超小激光器和纳米光学成为可能。
    “这项研究的应用相当广泛，”物理学家亚历Alexander J. Giles博士说，“通过将光限制在非常小的范围内，纳米光子装置可直接应用于超高分辨显微镜、太阳能收集、光学计算和有针对性的医疗治疗。”
    六方氮化硼形成由硼和氮原子构成的原子薄晶格。这种材料较近被证明是一种激发红外纳米光电子学的光学材料，被认为是二维材料的理想衬底。
    虽然以前的工作表明，天然的hBN支持在应用中需要的深度的亚衍射双曲声子，如子衍射光学成像（所谓的“超透镜”）、能量转换、化学传感和量子纳米光电子，有限的传输效率继续存在。
    Giles说：“我们已经证明，通过在极性半导体和电介质材料中对同位素进行细致的工程，纳米光电子的内在效率限制是可以克服的。”
    自然生成的硼由两种同位素组成，即硼-10和硼-11，在原子质量上有10%的差异。这种差异导致了声子散射造成的巨大损失，限制了这种材料的潜在应用。NRL的研究小组已经设计了超过99%的同位素纯样品，这意味着它们几乎全部由硼-10或硼-11同位素组成。
    这种方法导致光学损耗的大幅减少，从而导致光学模式的传播速度提高到原来的三倍，并持续时间长达三倍以上。这些长期存在的振动模式不仅能使近场光学和化学传感等领域的直接进步，而且也为其他材料系统的开发和建立提供了一种战略途径。
    Giles说：“在纳米尺度上控制和操作光，次衍射的尺寸是出了名的困难和低效。”“我们的工作为下一代材料和设备的发展开辟了新的道路。”

A team of physicists led by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has demonstrated ways to improve the optical loss properties and transmission efficiency of hexagonal boron nitride devices, enabling ultra-small lasers and nano-optics.

    "The applications of this research are quite broad," said physicist Alexander J. Giles, Ph.D. "By confining light to a very small range, nanophotonic devices can be directly used in super-resolution microscopy, solar energy harvesting, optical Computational and targeted medical treatment.”

    Hexagonal boron nitride forms an atomically thin lattice of boron and nitrogen atoms. This material has recently been shown to be an optical material for exciting infrared nano-optoelectronics and is considered an ideal substrate for two-dimensional materials.

    While previous work has shown that native hBN supports subdiffractive hyperbolic phonons at the depths required in applications such as subdiffractive optical imaging (so-called "metalens"), energy conversion, chemical sensing, and quantum nanophotonics, limited The transmission efficiency continues to exist.

    "We have shown that through careful engineering of isotopes in polar semiconductor and dielectric materials, the intrinsic efficiency limitations of nanophotonics can be overcome," Giles said.

    Naturally occurring boron is made up of two isotopes, boron-10 and boron-11, that differ by 10% in atomic mass. This difference results in huge losses due to phonon scattering, limiting the potential applications of this material. NRL's research team has designed samples that are more than 99 percent isotopically pure, meaning they consist almost entirely of the boron-10 or boron-11 isotope.

    This approach results in a dramatic reduction in optical losses, which results in optical modes that travel three times faster and last more than three times as long. These long-standing vibrational modes not only enable immediate advances in fields such as near-field optics and chemical sensing, but also provide a strategic avenue for the development and establishment of other material systems.

    "Controlling and manipulating light at the nanoscale, the size of subdiffraction, is notoriously difficult and inefficient," Giles said. "Our work opens up new avenues for the development of next-generation materials and devices."