Hyperbolic Behavior and Antiferromagnetic Order in Rare-Earth Tellurides

Quasi-2D materials have received much attention in recent years for their unusual physical properties. Among the most investigated of these materials are the rare-earth tellurides, which are primarily studied because they exhibit charge density waves and other quantum phenomena and have a high degree of tunability. In this paper, we examine the optical and magnetic properties of several rare-earth tellurides and find that they are antiferromagnetic materials with hyperbolic dispersion. Hyperbolic materials have very promising applications in sub-diffraction-limit optics, nanolithography, and spontaneous emission engineering, but these applications are hampered by low-quality hyperbolic materials. Rare-earth tellurides may provide insight into solving these issues if their properties can be properly tuned using the large variety of techniques already explored in the literature.