Strongly Enhanced Second Harmonic Generation in a Thin Film Lithium Niobate Heterostructure Cavity

Boosting second-order optical nonlinear frequency conversion over subwavelength thickness has long been pursued through optical resonance in micro- and nanophotonics. However, the availability of thin film materials with high second-order nonlinearity is limited to III-V semiconductors, which have low transparency in the visible. Here, we experimentally demonstrated strongly enhanced second harmonic generation in one-dimensional heterostructure cavities on thin film lithium niobate. A guided-mode resonance resonator and distributed Bragg reflectors are combined for both efficient coupling and electromagnetic field localization. Over 1200 times second harmonic generation enhancement is experimentally realized compared with flat thin film lithium niobate through optimizing the trade-off between quality factor and mode volume, leading to a record high normalized conversion efficiency of 2.03 x 10(-5) cm(2)/GW under 1.92 MW/cm(2) pump intensity. Our approach could inspire the miniaturization and integration of compact resonant nonlinear photonic devices on thin film lithium niobate.

Automated summary

This study demonstrates strongly enhanced second harmonic generation on thin film lithium niobate, achieving a record high conversion efficiency compared to conventional thin film materials, which could inspire the miniaturization and integration in this field.