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Paper   IPM / P / 17128
School of Physics
  Title:   Natural hyperbolicity in the layered hexagonal crystal structure
  Author(s): 
1.  A. Ebrahimian
2.  R. Asgari
  Status:   Published
  Journal: Phys. Rev. B
  Vol.:  103
  Year:  2022
  Pages:   035425
  Supported by:  IPM
  Abstract:
Discovering the physical requirements for meeting the indefinite permittivity in natural material, as well as proposing a new natural hyperbolic media, offer a possible route to significantly improving our knowledge and ability to confine and control light in optoelectronic devices. We demonstrate the hyperbolicity in a class of materials with hexagonal P6/mmm and P63/mmc layered crystal structures, and its physical origin is thoroughly investigated. By utilizing density functional theory and solving the Bethe-Salpeter equation, we find that the layered crystal structure and symmetry-imposed constraints in Li3N give rise to an exceedingly strong anisotropy in optical responses along in- and out-of-plane directions of the crystals, making it a natural hyperbolic in a broad spectral range from the visible spectrum to the ultraviolet. More excitingly, the hyperbolicity relation to anisotropic interband absorption, in addition to the impressive dependency of the conduction band on the lattice constant along the out-of-plane direction, provide the hyperbolicity tunability in these hexagonal structures under strain, doping, and alloying. Our findings not only suggest a large family of real hexagonal compounds as a unique class of materials for realization of the highly tunable broadband hyperbolicity, but they also offer an approach to search for new hyperbolic materials.

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