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All-optical free-space routing of upconverted light by metasurfaces via nonlinear interferometry

Nature Nanotechnology volume 19, pages 298–305 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

All-optical modulation yields the promise of high-speed information processing. In this field, metasurfaces are rapidly gaining traction as ultrathin multifunctional platforms for light management. Among the featured functionalities, they enable light-wavefront manipulation and more recently demonstrated the ability to perform light-by-light manipulation through nonlinear optical processes. Here, by employing a nonlinear periodic metasurface, we demonstrate the all-optical routing of telecom photons upconverted to the visible range. This is achieved via the interference between two frequency-degenerate upconversion processes, namely, third-harmonic and sum-frequency generation, stemming from the interaction of a pump pulse with its frequency-doubled replica. By tuning the relative phase and polarization between these two pump beams, we route the upconverted signal among the diffraction orders of the metasurface with a modulation efficiency of up to 90%. This can be achieved by concurrently engineering the nonlinear emission of the individual elements (meta-atoms) of the metasurface along with its pitch. Owing to the phase control and ultrafast dynamics of the underlying nonlinear processes, free-space all-optical routing could be potentially performed at rates close to the employed optical frequencies divided by the quality factor of the optical resonances at play. Our approach adds a further twist to optical interferometry, which is a key enabling technique employed in a wide range of applications, such as homodyne detection, radar interferometry, light detection and ranging technology, gravitational-wave detection and molecular photometry. In particular, the nonlinear character of light upconversion combined with phase sensitivity is extremely appealing for enhanced imaging and biosensing.

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Fig. 1: Free-space routing of upconverted light by a dielectric metasurface.
Fig. 2: Upconversion and routing with a nonlinear metasurface.
Fig. 3: Numerical optimization of interferometric routing.
Fig. 4: Polarization-controlled routing.

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All data that support the findings of the study are provided in this Article and its Supplementary Information. Raw data are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

A.Z., D.R. M.C., M.F., G.L. and C.D.A. acknowledge financial support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme through the project ‘METAFAST’ (grant agreement no. 899673). A.Z., D.R., M.C., M.F. and C.D.A. acknowledge the Italian Ministry of University and Research through the PRIN project NOMEN (id: 2017MP7F8F). G.L acknowledges the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche, project NANOPAIR (ANR-18-CE92-0043). M.C. would like to thank B. Celebrano for insightful discussions and invaluable mentoring.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Agostino Di Francescantonio, Attilio Zilli.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physics Department, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Agostino Di Francescantonio, Attilio Zilli, Fabrizio Conti, Paolo Biagioni, Lamberto Duò, Marco Finazzi & Michele Celebrano

  2. Department of Information Engineering, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy

    Davide Rocco & Costantino De Angelis

  3. Université de Paris, CNRS, Laboratoire Matériaux et Phénomènes Quantiques, Paris, France

    Laure Coudrat & Giuseppe Leo

  4. Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau, France

    Aristide Lemaître

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Contributions

M.C., M.F. and C.D.A. conceived the experiment. A.D.F., A.Z. and F.C. performed the experiments and analysed the data. D.R., A.D.F., A.Z. and P.B. performed the numerical simulations. L.C., A.L. and G.L. realized the metasurface. L.D., C.D.A., M.C. and M.F. supervised the project. A.D.F., M.F. and M.C. wrote the original draft.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Marco Finazzi or Michele Celebrano.

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Nature Nanotechnology thanks Thomas Zentgraf and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–7 and text.

Supplementary Video 1

BFP images of upconverted light emitted by the metasurfaces acquired at a time delay of 660 as between the pump pulse.

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Di Francescantonio, A., Zilli, A., Rocco, D. et al. All-optical free-space routing of upconverted light by metasurfaces via nonlinear interferometry. Nat. Nanotechnol. 19, 298–305 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01549-2

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