Enhanced third-harmonic generation induced by nonlinear field resonances in plasmonic-graphene metasurfaces
Yulian Liu, Shan Zhu, Qingjia Zhou, Yanyan Cao, Yangyang Fu, Lei Gao, Huanyang Chen, Yadong Xu
Abstract
Nonlinear metasurfaces offer new paradigm for boosting optical effect beyond limitations of conventional materials. In this work, we present an alternative way to produce pronounced third-harmonic generation (THG) based on nonlinear field resonances rather than linear field enhancement, which is a typical strategy for achieving a strong nonlinear response. By designing and studying a nonlinear plasmonic-graphene metasurface at terahertz regime with hybrid-guided modes and bound states in the continuum modes, it is found that a THG with a narrow bandwidth can be observed, thanks to the strong resonance generated between a weak THG field and these modes. Such strong nonlinear field resonance greatly enhances the photon-photon interactions, thus resulting in a large effective nonlinear coefficient of the whole system. This finding provides new opportunity for studying nonlinear optical metasurfaces.