The role of electromagnetic interactions in second harmonic generation from plasmonic metamaterials

We report on second harmonic generation spectroscopy on a series of rectangular arrays of split-ring resonators. Within the sample series, the lattice constants are varied, but the area of the unit cell is kept fixed. The SHG signal intensity of the different arrays upon resonant excitation of the fundamental plasmonic mode strongly depends on the respective arrangement of the split-ring resonators. This finding can be explained by variations of the electromagnetic interactions between the split-ring resonators in the different arrays. The experimental results are in agreement with numerical calculations based on the discontinuous Galerkin time-domain method.