No abstract

Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is a layered crystal that is attracting a great deal of attention as a promising material for nanophotonic applications. The strong optical anisotropy of this crystal is key to exploit polaritonic modes for manipulating light-matter interactions in 2D materials. h-BN has also great potential for solid-state neutron detection and neutron imaging devices, given the exceptionally high thermal neutron capture cross section of the boron-10 isotope. A good knowledge of phonons in layered crystals is essential for harnessing long-lived phonon-polariton modes for nanophotonic applications and may prove valuable for developing solidstate 10 BN neutron detectors with improved device architectures and higher detection efficiencies. Although phonons in graphene and isoelectronic materials with a similar hexagonal layer structure have been studied, the effect of isotopic substitution on the phonons of such lamellar compounds has not been addressed yet. Here we present a Raman scattering study of the in-plane high-energy Raman active mode on isotopically enriched singlecrystal h-BN. Phonon frequency and lifetime are measured in the 80-600-K temperature range for 10 B-enriched, 11 B-enriched, and natural composition high quality crystals. Their temperature dependence is explained in the light of perturbation theory calculations of the phonon self-energy. The effects of crystal anisotropy, isotopic disorder, and anharmonic phonon-decay channels are investigated in detail. The isotopic-induced changes in the phonon density of states are shown to enhance three-phonon anharmonic decay channels in 10 B-enriched crystals, opening the possibility of isotope tuning of the anharmonic phonon decay processes.

We have studied LO phonon-plasmon coupled modes by means of Raman scattering in n-InP for carrier densities between 6ϫ10 16 and 1ϫ10 19 cm Ϫ3 . A line-shape theory based on the Lindhard-Mermin dielectric function that takes into account the nonparabolicity of the InP conduction band as well as temperature and finite wave-vector effects is used to fit the Raman spectra and extract accurate values of the electron density. The results obtained from the Lindhard-Mermin model are compared with the charge density determinations based on the Drude and the hydrodynamical models, and the approximations involved in these models are discussed. ͓S0163-1829͑99͒10431-4͔