High-efficiency third harmonic generation from single Ge nanodisks

G. GRINBLAT; Y. LI; M. P. NIELSEN; R. F. OULTON; S. A. MAIER

Workshop; New horizons for nanophotonics; 2016

We present an all-dielectric germanium nanosystem exhibiting a strong third order nonlinear response and efficient third harmonic generation in the optical regime. A thin germanium nanodisk shows a pronounced valley in its scattering cross section close to the dark anapole mode, while the electric field energy inside the disk is maximized due to high confinement within the dielectric. We investigate the dependence of the third harmonic signal on disk size and pump wavelength to reveal the nature of the anapole mode. Each germanium nanodisk produces a third harmonic conversion efficiency of 0.0001% at a wavelength of 1650 nm, which is four orders of magnitude greater than the case of an unstructured germanium reference film. Furthermore, the nonlinear conversion via the anapole mode outperforms that via the radiative dipolar resonances by about one order of magnitude, which is consistent with our numerical simulations. These findings open new possibilities for the optimization of upconversion processes on the nanoscale through the appropriate engineering of suitable dielectric materials.