Free electron nonlinearities in heavily doped semiconductors plasmonics

Abstract

Heavily doped semiconductors have emerged as tunable low-loss plasmonic materials at mid-infrared frequencies. In this article we investigate nonlinear optical phenomena associated with high concentration of free electrons. We use a hydrodynamic description to study free electron dynamics in heavily doped semiconductors up to third-order terms, which are usually negligible for noble metals. We find that cascaded third-harmonic generation due to second-harmonic signals can be as strong as direct third-harmonic generation contributions even when the second-harmonic generation efficiency is zero. Moreover, we show that when coupled with plasmonic enhancement free electron nonlinearities could be up to two orders of magnitude larger than conventional semiconductor nonlinearities. Our study might open a new route for nonlinear optical integrated devices at mid-infrared frequencies.

References in corpus (4)

• Nonlocal optical response in metallic nanostructures
• Why metallic surfaces with grooves a few nanometers deep and wide may strongly absorb visible light
• Size-dependent nonlocal effects in plasmonic semiconductor particles
• Harmonic generation from gold nanolayers: an old problem under a new light

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Roadmap on Nonlocality in Photonic Materials and Metamaterials
• Plasmonic quantum nonlinear Hall effect in noncentrosymmetric 2D materials
• Ultrahigh free-electron Kerr nonlinearity in all-semiconductor waveguides for all-optical nonlinear modulation of mid-infrared light
• Nonlocal electrodynamics of two-dimensional anisotropic magneto-plasmons
• Impact of surface charge depletion on the free electron nonlinear response of heavily doped semiconductors