Probing and steering bulk and surface phonon polaritons in uniaxial materials using fast electrons: Hexagonal boron nitride

We theoretically describe how fast electrons couple to polaritonic modes in uniaxial materials by analyzing the electron energy-loss spectra. We show that in the case of a uniaxial medium with hyperbolic dispersion, bulk and surface modes can be excited by a fast electron traveling through the volume or along an infinite interface between the material and vacuum. Interestingly, and in contrast to excitations in isotropic materials, bulk modes can be excited by fast electrons traveling outside the uniaxial medium. We demonstrate our findings with the representative uniaxial material hexagonal boron nitride. We show that the excitation of bulk and surface phonon polariton modes is strongly related to the electron velocity and highly dependent on the angle between the electron beam trajectory and the optical axis of the material. Our work provides a systematic study for understanding bulk and surface polaritons excited by a fast electron beam in hyperbolic materials and sets a way to steer and control the propagation of the polaritonic waves by changing the electron velocity and its direction.