Lightwave-Electronic Harmonic Frequency Mixing

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel lightwave-electronic harmonic frequency mixer using plasmonic nanoantennas, extending detection capabilities into the petahertz range for broadband optical signal analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a compact, scalable harmonic mixer operating beyond 0.350 PHz, enabling field-resolved detection of optical signals across multiple harmonics.

Findings

Achieved harmonic mixing beyond 0.350 PHz.

Enabled complete, field-resolved spectral detection.

Extended frequency detection range significantly beyond conventional methods.

Abstract

Electronic frequency mixers are fundamental building blocks of electronic systems. Harmonic frequency mixing in particular enables broadband electromagnetic signal analysis across octaves of spectrum using a single local oscillator. However, conventional harmonic frequency mixers do not operate beyond hundreds of GHz to a few THz. If extended to the petahertz scale in a compact and scalable form, harmonic mixers would enable field-resolved optical signal analysis spanning octaves of spectra in a monolithic device without the need for frequency conversion using nonlinear crystals. Here we demonstrate lightwave-electronic harmonic frequency mixing beyond 0.350 PHz using plasmonic nanoantennas. We demonstrate that the mixing process enables complete, field-resolved detection of spectral content far outside that of the local oscillator, greatly extending the range of detectable frequencies compared to conventional heterodyning techniques. Our work has important implications for applications where optical signals of interest exhibit coherent femtosecond-scale dynamics spanning multiple harmonics.