Segura, A., Cuscó, R., Taniguchi, T., Watanabe, K., & Artús, L. (2020). Long lifetime of the E1u in-plane infrared-active modes of h-BN. Physical Review B, 101(23), 235203. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.101.235203
Abstract
We present an infrared reflectivity study of the E1u in-plane phonons of hexagonal BN as a function of temperature in the 40–680 K range. The infrared reflectance spectra of high-quality lamellar single crystals are accurately fitted using Lowndes’ factorized form of the dielectric response, where the longitudinal-optic (LO) frequency is an independent adjustable parameter. From this analysis we obtain reliable values for the phonon damping of the IR-active E1u phonons which couple to light and give rise to the phonon-polariton excitations in this hyperbolic material. Anharmonic coupling potentials are estimated from the temperature dependence of the damping parameters. The E1u(LO) mode exhibits a substantially longer lifetime than its transverse-optic counterpart, as it is basically unaffected by isotopic-disorder scattering owing to the low density of phonon states around the E1u(LO) frequency.