ABSTRACT Graphene plasmons were predicted to possess simultaneous ultrastrong field confinement and very low damping, enabling new classes of devices for deep-subwavelength metamaterials,

single-photon nonlinearities, extraordinarily strong light–matter interactions and nano-optoelectronic switches. Although all of these great prospects require low damping, thus far strong

plasmon damping has been observed, with both impurity scattering and many-body effects in graphene proposed as possible explanations. With the advent of van der Waals heterostructures, new

methods have been developed to integrate graphene with other atomically flat materials. In this Article we exploit near-field microscopy to image propagating plasmons in high-quality

losses in the h-BN. The observation and in-depth understanding of low plasmon damping is the key to the development of graphene nanophotonic and nano-optoelectronic devices. Access through

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CONTENT BEING VIEWED BY OTHERS TAILORED PLASMON POLARITON LANDSCAPE IN GRAPHENE/BORON NITRIDE PATTERNED HETEROSTRUCTURES Article Open access 24 May 2024 ANALYSIS OF PLASMON MODES IN

BI2SE3/GRAPHENE HETEROSTRUCTURES VIA ELECTRON ENERGY LOSS SPECTROSCOPY Article Open access 28 December 2024 OPTICAL ANISOTROPY IN VAN DER WAALS MATERIALS: IMPACT ON DIRECT EXCITATION OF

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from first principles. _Solid State Commun._ 141, 262–266 (2007). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is a great pleasure to thank J. D. Caldwell, J.

García de Abajo, A. Tomadin and L. Levitov for many useful discussions. This work used open source software (www.matplotlib.org, www.python.org). F.H.L.K. acknowledges support by the

Fundacio Cellex Barcelona, the ERC Career integration grant 294056 (GRANOP), the ERC starting grant 307806 (CarbonLight), and support by EU project GRASP (FP7-ICT-2013-613024-GRASP).

F.H.L.K., M.P. and R.H. acknowledge support by the EU under Graphene Flagship (contract no. CNECT-ICT-604391). A.P. and G.V. acknowledge DOE grant DE-FG02-05ER46203 and a Research Board

Grant at the University of Missouri. M.P. and M.C. acknowledge support by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR) through the programme ‘FIRB – Futuro in

Ricerca’, Project PLASMOGRAPH (Grant No. RBFR10M5BT) and Project HybridNanoDev (Grant No. RBFR1236VV). M.P. also acknowledges support by the MIUR through the programme ‘Progetti Premiali

2012’ – Project ABNANOTECH. R.H. acknowledges support by the ERC starting grant 258461 (TERATOMO) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (National Project MAT2012-36580).

Y.G. and J.H. acknowledge support from the US Office of Naval Research N00014-13-1-0662. AUTHOR INFORMATION Author notes * Achim Woessner, Mark B. Lundeberg, Yuanda Gao and Frank H. L.

Koppens: These authors contributed equally to this work. AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * ICFO – Institut de Ciències Fotòniques, Mediterranean Technology Park, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona),

Spain Achim Woessner, Mark B. Lundeberg & Frank H. L. Koppens * Department of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA Yuanda Gao & James Hone *

Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA Alessandro Principi & Giovanni Vignale * CIC nanoGUNE, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain

Pablo Alonso-González * NEST, Istituto Nanoscienze – CNR and Scuola Normale Superiore, 56126 Pisa, Italy Matteo Carrega & Marco Polini * SPIN-CNR, Via Dodecaneso 33, 16146 Genova, Italy

Matteo Carrega * National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba 305-0044, Japan Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi * Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Graphene Labs, Via

Morego 30 16163 Genova, Italy, Marco Polini * CIC nanoGUNE and UPV/EHU, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain Rainer Hillenbrand * IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, 48011 Bilbao,

Spain Rainer Hillenbrand Authors * Achim Woessner View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Mark B. Lundeberg View author publications You can

also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Yuanda Gao View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Alessandro Principi View author

publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Pablo Alonso-González View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Matteo

Carrega View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Kenji Watanabe View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google

Scholar * Takashi Taniguchi View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Giovanni Vignale View author publications You can also search for this

author inPubMed Google Scholar * Marco Polini View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * James Hone View author publications You can also search

for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Rainer Hillenbrand View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Frank H. L. Koppens View author

publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS A.W. and M.B.L. performed the experiments, discussed the results and wrote the manuscript. Y.G.

fabricated the samples. A.P., M.P., G.V. and M.C. provided the theory on different loss mechanisms. P.A-G. helped with measurements. K.W. and T.T. synthesized the h-BN samples. G.V., M.P.,

J.H., R.H. and F.H.L.K. supervised the work, discussed the results and co-wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to the scientific discussion and manuscript revisions. CORRESPONDING

AUTHOR Correspondence to Frank H. L. Koppens. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS R.H. is co-founder of Neaspec GmbH, a company producing scattering-type scanning near-field optical

microscope systems such as the ones used in this study. All other authors declare no competing financial interests. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary

Information (PDF 1045 kb) RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Woessner, A., Lundeberg, M., Gao, Y. _et al._ Highly confined low-loss plasmons

in graphene–boron nitride heterostructures. _Nature Mater_ 14, 421–425 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4169 Download citation * Received: 03 September 2014 * Accepted: 11 November 2014

* Published: 22 December 2014 * Issue Date: April 2015 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4169 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

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