Harmonic Generation in Multi-Resonant Plasma Films

Abstract

We investigate second and third harmonic generation in a slab of material that displays plasma resonances at the pump and its harmonic frequencies. Near-zero refractive indices and local field enhancement can deplete the pump for kW/cm2 incident powers, without resorting to other resonant photonic mechanisms. We show that low-threshold, highly-efficient nonlinear processes are possible in the presence of losses and phase-mismatch in structures that are 104 times shorter than typical KDP or LiNbO3 crystals, for relatively low irradiance values.