Recently, it was demonstrated that a graphene/dielectric/metal configuration
can support acoustic plasmons, which exhibit extreme plasmon confinement an
order of magnitude higher than that of conventional graphene plasmons. Here, we
investigate acoustic plasmons supported in a monolayer and multilayers of black
phosphorus (BP) placed just a few nanometers above a conducting plate. In the
presence of a conducting plate, the acoustic plasmon dispersion for the
armchair direction is found to exhibit the characteristic linear scaling in the
mid- and far-infrared regime while it largely deviates from that in the long
wavelength limit and near-infrared regime. For the zigzag direction, such
scaling behavior is not evident due to relatively tighter plasmon confinement.
Further, we demonstrate a new design for an acoustic plasmon resonator that
exhibits higher plasmon confinement and resonance efficiency than BP ribbon
resonators in the mid-infrared and longer wavelength regime. Theoretical
framework and new resonator design studied here provide a practical route
toward the experimental verification of the acoustic plasmons in BP and open up
the possibility to develop novel plasmonic and optoelectronic devices that can
leverage its strong in-plane anisotropy and thickness-dependent band gap
