Phase-matching and peak nonlinearity enhanced third-harmonic generation in graphene plasmonic coupler

Abstract

Strong nonlinear optical effects generally require giant optical fields interacting with the nonlinear media. Doped graphene hosts electrically tunable plasmons with long lifetimes that interact strongly with light. We investigate a graphene plasmonic coupler and explore two mechanisms to pursue highly efficient third-harmonic generation (THG): (1) phase matching of graphene plasmons at fundamental- and third-harmonic frequencies and (2) peak third-order nonlinear susceptibility of doped graphene. The third-harmonic wave is mainly converted from the evanescent mode of the incident light and the THG efficiency is found to be enhanced by over 10 orders of magnitude compared with a bare monolayer graphene. The significantly enhanced nonlinear optical responses in the graphene plasmonic coupler make this configuration an ideal platform for the development of alternative frequency generators and for signal processing at midinfrared and terahertz frequencies.