All semiconductor enhanced high-harmonic generation from a single nanostructured cone

authored by
Dominik Franz, Shatha Kaassamani, David Gauthier, Rana Nicolas, Maria Kholodtsova, Ludovic Douillard, Jean Thomas Gomes, Laure Lavoute, Dmitry Gaponov, Nicolas Ducros, Sebastien Février, Jens Biegert, Liping Shi, Milutin Kovacev, Willem Boutu, Hamed Merdji
Abstract

The enhancement and control of non-linear phenomena at a nanometer scale has a wide range of applications in science and in industry. Among these phenomena, high-harmonic generation in solids is a recent focus of research to realize next generation petahertz optoelectronic devices or compact all solid state EUV sources. Here, we report on the realization of the first nanoscale high harmonic source. The strong field regime is reached by confining the electric field from a few nanojoules femtosecond laser in a single 3D semiconductor waveguide. We reveal a strong competition between enhancement of coherent harmonics and incoherent fluorescence favored by excitonic processes. However, far from the band edge, clear enhancement of the harmonic emission is reported with a robust sustainability offering a compact nanosource for applications. We illustrate the potential of our harmonic nano-device by performing a coherent diffractive imaging experiment. Ultra-compact UV/X-ray nanoprobes are foreseen to have other applications such as petahertz electronics, nano-tomography or nano-medicine.

Organisation(s)
Institute of Quantum Optics
QuantumFrontiers
External Organisation(s)
Université Paris-Saclay
Novae
Universite de Limoges
ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences
Type
Article
Journal
Scientific Reports
Volume
9
ISSN
2045-2322
Publication date
01.12.2020
Publication status
Published
Peer reviewed
Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas
General
Electronic version(s)
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-41642-y (Access: Open)
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-63113-5 (Access: Open)