Near-field imaging of nonlinear optical mixing in single zinc oxide nanowires

The nonlinear optical response of semiconductor nanowires has potential application for frequency conversion in nanoscale optical circuitry. Here, second- and third-harmonic generation (SHG, THG) are imaged on single zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires using near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM). The absolute magnitudes of the two independent chi((2)) elements of a single wire are determined, and the nanowire SHG and THG emission patterns as a function of incident polarization are attributed to the hexagonal nanowire geometry and chi((2)) tensor symmetry.