  yperbolic polaritons in van der Waals materials recently attract a lot of
attention, owing to their strong electromagnetic field confinement, ultraslow
group velocities and long lifetimes. Typically, volume confined hyperbolic
polaritons (HPs) are studied. Here we show the first near-field optical images
of hyperbolic surface polarities, HSPs, which are confined and guided at the
edges of thin flakes of a vdW material. To that end, we applied scattering-type
scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) for launching and real-space
nanoimaging of hyperbolic surface phonon polariton modes on a hexagonal boron
nitride, h-BN, flake. Our imaging data reveal that the fundamental HSP mode
exhibits stronger field confinement, smaller group velocities and nearly
identical lifetimes, as compared to the fundamental HP mode of the same h-BN
flake. Our experimental data, corroborated by theory, establish a solid basis
for future studies and applications of HPs and HSPs in vdW materials.
