Self-organized spatiotemporal quasi-phase-matching in microresonators

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the self-organization of a spatiotemporal quasi-phase-matching grating in silicon nitride microresonators, enabling efficient second-harmonic generation through all-optical poling and a traveling space-charge grating.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of self-organized spatiotemporal QPM in microresonators via all-optical poling, expanding phase matching techniques in nonlinear photonics.

Findings

Self-organized traveling space-charge grating observed.

Enhanced second-harmonic generation with Doppler shift.

Spatiotemporal QPM expands phase matching conditions.

Abstract

Quasi-phase-matching (QPM) is a widely adopted technique for mitigating stringent momentum conservation in nonlinear optical processes such as second-harmonic generation (SHG). It effectively compensates for the phase velocity mismatch between optical harmonics by introducing a periodic spatial modulation to the nonlinear optical medium. Such a mechanism has been further generalized to the spatiotemporal domain, where a non-stationary spatial QPM can induce a frequency shift of the generated light. Here we demonstrate how a spatiotemporal QPM grating, consisting in a concurrent spatial and temporal modulation of the nonlinear response, naturally emerges through all-optical poling in silicon nitride microresonators. Mediated by the coherent photogalvanic effect, a traveling space-charge grating is self-organized, affecting momentum and energy conservation, resulting in a quasi-phase-matched and Doppler-shifted second harmonic. Our observation of the photoinduced spatiotemporal QPM expands the scope of phase matching conditions in nonlinear photonics.