No Arabic abstract
We investigate the generation of ultraviolet (UV) second-harmonic radiation on the boundary of a UV transparent crystal, which is derived from the automatic partial phase matching of the incident wave and the total internal reflection. By adhering to another UV non-transparency crystal with larger second-order nonlinear coefficient chi^{(2)}, an nonlinear interface with large disparity in chi^{(2)} is formed and the enhancement of UV second-harmonic radiation is observed experimentally. The intensity of enhanced second harmonic wave generated at the nonlinear interface was up to 11.6 times at the crystal boundary. As a tunable phase-matching method, it may suggest potential applications in the UV, even vacuum-UV, spectral region.
In addition to their strong nonlinear optical response, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) possess a high refractive index in the visible and infrared regime. Therefore, by patterning those TMDCs into dielectric nanoresonators, one can generate highly confined electromagnetic modes. Controlled fabrication of TMDC nanoresonators does not only enhance the materials intrinsic nonlinear response, but also allows for spatially shaping the emission via nanoresonator arrays. Here we fabricate patterned WS2 disks that support a high internal resonant electric field and show strong enhancement of second harmonic (SH) generation in the visible regime. In addition, we assemble the WS2 disks in arrays to spatially direct the coherent SH emission, in analogy to phased array antennas. Finally, we investigate and discuss drastic differences in the areal emission origin and intensity of the measured SH signals, which we find to depend on material variations of the used bulk WS2.
Plasmonic enhancement of nonlinear optical processes confront severe limitations arising from the strong dispersion of metal susceptibilities and small interaction volumes that hamper desirable phase-matching-like conditions. Maximizing nonlinear interactions in nanoscale systems require simultaneous excitation of resonant modes that spatially and constructively overlap at all wavelengths involved in the process. Here, we present a hybrid rectangular patch antenna design for optimal second harmonic generation (SHG) that is characterized by a non-centrosymmetric dielectric/ferroelectric material at the plasmonic hot spot. The optimization of the rectangular patch allows for the independent tuning of various modes of resonances that can be used to enhance the SHG process. We explore the angular dependence of SHG in these hybrid structures and highlight conditions necessary for maximal SHG efficiency. Furthermore, we propose a novel configuration with a periodically-poled ferroelectric layer for orders-of-magnitude enhanced SHG at normal incidence. Such a platform may enable the development of integrated nanoscale light sources and on-chip frequency converters.
Higher-order topological insulators (HOTI) are a novel topological phase beyond the framework of the conventional bulk-boundary correspondence. In these peculiar systems, the topologically nontrivial boundary modes are characterized by a co-dimension of at least two. Despite several promising preliminary considerations regarding the impact of nonlinearity in such systems, the flourishing field of experimental HOTI research has thus far been confined to the linear evolution of topological states. As such, the observation of the interplay between nonlinearity and the dynamics of higher-order topological phases in conservative systems remains elusive. In our work, we experimentally demonstrate nonlinear higher-order topological corner states. Our photonic platform enables us to observe nonlinear topological corner states as well as the formation of solitons in such topological structures. Our work paves the way towards the exploration of topological properties of matter in the nonlinear regime, and may herald a new class of compact devices that harnesses the intriguing features of topology in an on-demand fashion.
We describe an approach based on topology optimization that enables automatic discovery of wavelength-scale photonic structures for achieving high-efficiency second-harmonic generation (SHG). A key distinction from previous formulation and designs that seek to maximize Purcell factors at individual frequencies is that our method not only aims to achieve frequency matching (across an entire octave) and large radiative lifetimes, but also optimizes the equally important nonlinear--coupling figure of merit $bar{beta}$, involving a complicated spatial overlap-integral between modes. We apply this method to the particular problem of optimizing micropost and grating-slab cavities (one-dimensional multilayered structures) and demonstrate that a variety of material platforms can support modes with the requisite frequencies, large lifetimes $Q > 10^4$, small modal volumes $sim (lambda/n)^3$, and extremely large $bar{beta} gtrsim 10^{-2}$, leading to orders of magnitude enhancements in SHG efficiency compared to state of the art photonic designs. Such giant $bar{beta}$ alleviate the need for ultra-narrow linewidths and thus pave the way for wavelength-scale SHG devices with faster operating timescales and higher tolerance to fabrication imperfections.
We demonstrate supermode-based second harmonic generation in an integrated nonlinear interferometer made of linear and nonlinear directional couplers. We use a fully-fibered pump shaper to demonstrate second harmonic generation pumped by the symmetric or anti- symmetric fundamental spatial modes. The selection of the pumping mode and thus of a specific SHG spectral profile is achieved through the selection of the fundamental wavelength and via a robust phase setting scheme. We use two methods: either post-selecting or actively setting the pumping mode. Such a modal phase matching paves the way for classical and quantum applications of coupled nonlinear photonic circuits, where multimode excitation, encoding and detection are a route for multiplexing and scaling up light-processing.