Studies of surface and interface phonon polariton characteristics of wurtzite ZnO thin film on wurtzite 6H-SiC substrate by p-polarized infrared attenuated total reflection spectroscopy

The surface and interface phonon polariton characteristics of a wurtzite ZnO thin film grown on a wurtzite 6H-SiC substrate are investigated by p-polarized infrared attenuated total reflection spectroscopy. Two absorption dips corresponding to the leaky surface phonon polariton (SPP) mode of ZnO and the interface phonon polariton (IPP) mode of ZnO/6H-SiC are clearly observed at 558 and 916 cm^− 1, respectively. The observations are in good agreement with the results determined from the theoretical surface polariton dispersion curve simulated by means of an anisotropy model. Finally, the effects of the ZnO thin film thickness on the SPP and IPP modes are deduced from the theoretical calculations.