Giant enhancement of third-harmonic generation in graphene-metal heterostructures

Kavli Affiliate: Cheng Peng

| First 5 Authors: Irati Alonso Calafell, Lee A. Rozema, David Alcaraz Iranzo, Alessandro Trenti, Joel D. Cox

| Summary:

Nonlinear nanophotonics leverages engineered nanostructures to funnel light
into small volumes and intensify nonlinear optical processes with spectral and
spatial control. Due to its intrinsically large and electrically tunable
nonlinear optical response, graphene is an especially promising nanomaterial
for nonlinear optoelectronic applications. Here we report on exceptionally
strong optical nonlinearities in graphene-insulator-metal heterostructures,
demonstrating an enhancement by three orders of magnitude in the third-harmonic
signal compared to bare graphene. Furthermore, by increasing the graphene Fermi
energy through an external gate voltage, we find that graphene plasmons mediate
the optical nonlinearity and modify the third-harmonic signal. Our findings
show that graphene-insulator-metal is a promising heterostructure for
optically-controlled and electrically-tunable nano-optoelectronic components.

| Search Query: ArXiv Query: search_query=au:”Cheng Peng”&id_list=&start=0&max_results=10

Read More