Third-harmonic generation in photonic topological metasurfaces

We study nonlinear effects in two-dimensional photonic metasurfaces supporting topologically-protected helical edge states at the nanoscale. We observe strong third-harmonic generation mediated by optical nonlinearities boosted by multipolar Mie resonances of silicon nanoparticles. Variation of the pump-beam wavelength enables independent high-contrast imaging of either bulk modes or spin-momentum-locked edge states. We demonstrate topology-driven tunable localization of the generated harmonic fields and map the pseudospin-dependent unidirectional waveguiding of the edge states bypassing sharp corners. Our observations establish dielectric metasurfaces as a promising platform for the robust generation and transport of photons in topological photonic nanostructures.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Optical third harmonic generation in black phosphorus

We present a calculation of Third Harmonic Generation (THG) for two-band systems using the length gauge that avoids unphysical divergences otherwise present in the evaluation of the third order current density response. The calculation is applied to bulk and monolayer black Phosphorus (bP) using a non-orthogonal tight-binding model. Results show that the low energy response is dominated by mixed inter-intraband processes and estimates of the magnitude of THG susceptibility are comparable to recent experimental reports for bulk bP samples.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Angular Dependences of Third Harmonic Generation from Microdroplets

We present experimental and theoretical results for the angular dependence of third harmonic generation (THG) of water droplets in the micrometer range (size parameter $62<ka<248$). The THG signal in $p$- and $s$-polarization obtained with ultrashort laser pulses is compared with a recently developed nonlinear extension of classical Mie theory including multipoles of order $l\leq250$. Both theory and experiment yield over a wide range of size parameters remarkably stable intensity maxima close to the forward and backward direction at ``magic angles''. In contrast to linear Mie scattering, both are of comparable intensity.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, 3 figures available on request from [email protected], submitted to PR

Cascaded third harmonic generation in lithium niobate nanowaveguides

We predict highly efficient third harmonic generation through simultaneous phase-matching of second-harmonic generation and sum-frequency generation in lithium niobate nanowaveguides, enabled due to strong modal dispersion. We demonstrate that the waveguide size which corresponds to phase-matching is also optimal for highest mode confinement and therefore for strongly enhanced conversion efficiency.We acknowledge the support by the Australian Research Council, the Australian Academy of Science, Australian National Computational Infrastructure, and German Research Foundation, Grant No. NanoGuide, PE 1524/5-1

Symmetry selective third harmonic generation from plasmonic metacrystals

Nonlinear processes are often governed by selection rules imposed by the symmetries of the molecular configurations. The most well-known examples include the role of mirror symmetry breaking for the generation of even harmonics, and the selection rule related to the rotation symmetry in harmonic generation for fundamental beams with circular polarizations. While the role of mirror symmetry breaking in second harmonic generation has been extensively studied in plasmonic systems, the investigation on selection rules pertaining to circular polarization states of harmonic generation has been limited to crystals, i.e. symmetries at the atomic level. Here we demonstrate the rotational symmetry dependent third harmonic generation from nonlinear plasmonic metacrystals. We show that the selection rule can be imposed by the rotational symmetry of meta-crystals embedded into an isotropic organic nonlinear thin film. The results presented here may open new avenues for designing symmetry-dependent nonlinear optical responses with tailored plasmonic nanostructures.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

Dynamical mean field theory of optical third harmonic generation

We formulate the third harmonic generation (THG) within the dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) approximation of the Hubbard model. In the limit of large dimensions, where DMFT becomes exact, the vertex corrections to current vertices are identically zero, and hence the calculation of the THG spectrum reduces to a time-ordered convolution, followd by appropriate analytic continuuation. We present the typical THG spectrum of the Hubbard model obtained by this method. Within our DMFT calculation, we observe a nontrivial approximate {\em scaling} function describing the THG spectra in all Mott insulators, independent of the gap magnitude.Comment: 4 eps figure