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Enhanced high-harmonic generation from an all-dielectric metasurface

Nature Physics volume 14, pages 1006–1010 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

The recent observation of high-harmonic generation from solids creates a new possibility for engineering fundamental strong-field processes by patterning the solid target with subwavelength nanostructures. All-dielectric metasurfaces exhibit high damage thresholds and strong enhancement of the driving field, making them attractive platforms to control high harmonics and other high-field processes at the nanoscale. Here we report enhanced non-perturbative high-harmonic emission from a Fano-resonant Si metasurface that possesses a classical analogue of electromagnetically induced transparency. The harmonic emission is enhanced by more than two orders of magnitude compared to unpatterned samples. The enhanced high harmonics are highly anisotropic with respect to the excitation polarization and are selective by the excitation wavelength due to its resonant features. By combining nanofabrication technology and ultrafast strong-field physics, our work paves the way for the design of new compact ultrafast photonic devices that operate under high intensities and at short wavelengths.

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Fig. 1: Working principle of the metasurface and resonance characterization.
Fig. 2: High-harmonic spectra from a Si metasurface.
Fig. 3: Dependence of non-perturbative high-harmonic yield on excitation intensity.
Fig. 4: Dependence of the high-harmonic spectra on the excitation wavelength.

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Acknowledgements

This project was supported primarily by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under grant no. FA9550-14-1-0108. We thank S.Ghimire and J.Lu for technical support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stanford PULSE Institute, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, USA

    Hanzhe Liu, Giulio Vampa, Philip H. Bucksbaum & David A. Reis

  2. Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Hanzhe Liu & Philip H. Bucksbaum

  3. Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Cheng Guo, Jingyuan Linda Zhang, Philip H. Bucksbaum, Jelena Vučković, Shanhui Fan & David A. Reis

  4. E. L. Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Cheng Guo, Jingyuan Linda Zhang, Tomas Sarmiento, Meng Xiao, Jelena Vučković & Shanhui Fan

  5. Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Tomas Sarmiento, Jelena Vučković & Shanhui Fan

  6. Department of Photon Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Philip H. Bucksbaum & David A. Reis

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  1. Hanzhe Liu
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Contributions

H.L. and C.G. contributed equally to this work. H.L. conceived the experiment. C.G. and M.X. performed FDTD simulations. H.L. and J.L.Z. fabricated the device. H.L. and G.V. performed the HHG measurement under the supervision of D.A.R. H.L., C.G, T.S., and J.L.Z. characterized the resonance. All authors contributed to the discussion and preparation of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Hanzhe Liu or David A. Reis.

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Liu, H., Guo, C., Vampa, G. et al. Enhanced high-harmonic generation from an all-dielectric metasurface. Nature Phys 14, 1006–1010 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-018-0233-6

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