ABSTRACT
The feasibility of a modal phase matching scheme between optical modes and surface plasmonic modes is demonstrated: in fact, the high effective index of a plasmonic mode allows us to obtain phase matching even in semiconductors showing a large dispersion between fundamental and second harmonic wavelengths. We design a realistic device to obtain Type-II second harmonic generation in AlGaAs-based waveguides; whereas one of the two pumps is carried by a plasmonic mode, the generated second harmonic signal is guided inside the AlGaAs multilayer, and hence it is not hampered by high propagation losses.
ABSTRACT
We introduce a simple approach for the efficient generation of tunable narrow-bandwidth picosecond pulses synchronized to broadband femtosecond ones. Second harmonic generation in the presence of large group velocity mismatch between the interacting pulses transfers a large fraction of the energy of a broadband fundamental frequency pulse into a narrowband second harmonic one. Using a periodically poled stoichiometric lithium tantalate crystal coupled to an infrared optical parametric amplifier, we generated 200-nJ pulses with spectral width lower than 8.5 cm(-1) and tunability from 720 to 890 nm. Energy scaling and extension of the tuning range are straightforward.
