Second-harmonic generation in longitudinal epsilon-near-zero materials

Abstract

We investigate second-harmonic generation from anisotropic or longitudinal epsilon-near-zero materials. We find conversion efficiencies well above their isotropic counterparts owing to additional field intensity enhancement provided by the anisotropy. At the same time, anisotropic epsilon-near-zero materials are also less sensitive to the material's losses compared to the isotropic ones. In turn, these improvements become pivotal for epsilon-near-zero materials that do not possess bulk dipole-allowed quadratic nonlinearities. We predict that second-harmonic generation from a Dy:CdO/Si multilayer with longitudinal epsilon-near-zero properties can exceed the conversion efficiency of a homogeneous Dy:CdO slab of equivalent thickness by at least 20 times for almost any angle of incidence.