Abstract
The association of plasmonic nanostructures with nonlinear dielectric systems has been shown to provide useful platforms for boosting frequency conversion processes at metal-dielectric interfaces. Here, we report on an efficient route for engineering light–matter interaction processes in hybrid plasmonic-χ(2) dielectric systems to enhance second harmonic generation (SHG) processes confined in small spatial regions. By means of ferroelectric lithography, we have fabricated scalable micrometric arrangements of interacting silver nanoparticles compactly distributed on hexagonal regions. The fabricated polygonal microstructures support both localized and extended plasmonic modes, providing large spatial regions of field enhancement at the optical frequencies involved in the SHG process. We experimentally demonstrate that the resonant excitation of the plasmonic modes supported by the Ag nanoparticle-filled hexagons in the near infrared region produces an extraordinary 104-fold enhancement of the blue second harmonic intensity generated in the surface of a LiNbO3 crystal. The results open new perspectives for the design of efficient hybrid plasmonic frequency converters in miniaturized devices.
Highlights
The generation and manipulation of nonlinear optical processes at the nanoscale is a highly interesting field due to its broad range of applications in a variety of disciplines such as biology, physics, chemistry, materials science, and information technologies [1,2,3]
When the patterned ferroelectric is placed into an AgNO3 solution and illuminated with aboveband-gap UV light, the screening charge produces electronic photocarriers at the crystal surface, which participate in the chemical reaction reducing the silver cations on the specific polarity domains [34]
We have presented an alternative hybrid plasmonic-nonlinear dielectric
Summary
The generation and manipulation of nonlinear optical processes at the nanoscale is a highly interesting field due to its broad range of applications in a variety of disciplines such as biology, physics, chemistry, materials science, and information technologies [1,2,3]. The large near field enhancement provided by localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) compensates for the lack of phase matching mechanisms at the nanoscale, leading to high nonlinear responses at subwavelength scales [4,5,6]. The use of plasmonic nanostructures for light confinement in nonlinear dielectrics has emerged as an efficient and straightforward approach for boosting the frequency doubling response in miniaturized components. This approach exploits both the high nonlinear coefficients offered by certain nonlinear dielectric crystals and the strong light confinement provided by plasmonic structures, which has led to efficient
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