Efficient Second-Harmonic Generation from Silicon Slotted Nanocubes with Bound States in the Continuum

Optical materials with centrosymmetry, such as silicon and germanium, are unfortunately absent of second-order nonlinear optical responses, hindering their developments in efficient nonlinear optical devices. Here, a design with an array of slotted nanocubes is proposed to realize remarkable second harmonic generation (SHG) from the centrosymmetric silicon, which takes advantage of enlarged surface second-order nonlinearity, strengthened electric field over the surface of the air-slot, as well as the resonance enhancement by the bound states in the continuum. Compared with that from the array of silicon nanocubes without air-slots, SHG from the slotted nanocube array is improved by more than two orders of magnitude. The experimentally measured SHG efficiency of the silicon slotted nanocube array is high as 1.8 × 10⁻⁴ W⁻¹, which is expected to be further engineered by modifying the air-slot geometries. The result can provide a new strategy to expand nonlinear optical effects and devices of centrosymmetric materials.