Intense THz s-SNOM for nonlinearity engineering in nanoscale

TL;DR

This paper introduces a high peak power THz scattering near-field microscopy technique that enables nanoscale third harmonic generation imaging, advancing the study of nonlinear physics and carrier dynamics in condensed matter.

Contribution

The work combines high peak power THz pulses with near-field microscopy to achieve nanoscale nonlinear imaging, overcoming previous limitations of low repetition rate THz sources.

Findings

Demonstrated 200 nm resolution THz third harmonic imaging of 3D Dirac semimetal

Observed power-law dependence of THz harmonics consistent with theoretical models

Enabled exploration of nonlinear and quantum phenomena at nanoscale

Abstract

Terahertz (THz) nonlinear optics offer powerful tools to investigate and manipulate electronic dynamics in condensed matter. Confining high-peak-power THz pulses within near field can effectively generates extremely localized electromagnetic fields in spatio-temporal, enabling to precisely explore and control carrier transient dynamics from THz nonlinearity perspective. However, the combination of the high peak power THz pulses and the near-field optic techniques remains challenging due to the incompatibility between low repetition THz pulses and typical near-field demodulation schemes. Here, we construct high peak power THz scattering scanning near-field microscopy (THz s-SNOM) by combining THz pulses emitted from two-color femtosecond laser filaments with a tapping mode atomic force microscopy (AFM) and explore efficient THz third harmonics generation (THG) from the Cd3As2 film in nanoscale. The power-law dependence of the THz harmonics and theoretical calculation reveals a convincing third harmonic generation that is attributed to the nonequilibrium intraband dynamics driven by the strong THz pulses. Especially, the nanoscopic near-field THz third harmonic imaging with resolution of 200 nm ({\lambda}/3000) of 3D Dirac semimetal are demonstrated. The high peak power THz s-SNOM can provide a great platform for exploring and manipulating the nonlinear physics, carrier dynamics and quantum coherent phenomena driven by the localized THz field with nanoscale resolution, thereby guiding the development of the integrated high-performance nonlinear photonic devices.