Localized Surface Phonon Polaritons and Infrared Optical Absorption of ScAlN Nanoresonators

Alloying AlN with ScN provides a robust strategy for engineering its intrinsic bandgap, phonons and dielectric functions, and ScAlN alloys have demonstrated great promise in applications including the 5G mobile network, surface acoustic wave devices and nanophotonics. Sc doping has been shown to greatly influence the phonons and infrared dielectric functions of AlN, yet few studies have focused on its influence on surface phonon polaritons, which are crucial to modulating the radiative properties of ScAlN metasurfaces. Herein, we combined first-principles and finite element method (FEM) simulations to fully investigate the effects of Sc incorporation on the phonon dispersion relation, propagation and localization of SPhPs and the modulated radiative properties of ScAlN nanoresonators. As the Sc doping concentration increases, the highest optical phonon frequencies are reduced and are largely directly related to enlarged lattice parameters. Consequently, the coupling strength among incident photons and phonons decreases, which leads to a reduced absorption peak in the infrared dielectric functions. Moreover, the propagation length of the SPhPs in ScAlN is largely reduced, and localized resonance modes gradually disappear at a higher Sc doping concentration. This work provides physical insights into the spectra tuning mechanisms of ScAlN nanoresonators via Sc doping and facilitates their applications in nanophotonic devices.