Impact of longitudinal fields on second harmonic generation in lithium niobate nanopillars

An optimized focused ion beam process is used to fabricate micrometer-long LiNbO3 nanopillars with diameters varying between 150 and 325 nm. Polarimetric mappings of second harmonic generation from a wavelength of 850 nm demonstrate the ability to modify the polarization features of the nonlinear response through a fine adjustment of the pillar size. The effect is ascribed to the non-negligible contribution of the longitudinal fields associated with sub-wavelength light confinement in the LiNbO3 nanopillars. The results also highlight the importance of a fine control over the nanopillar size in order to effectively engineer their nonlinear response. (C) 2016 Author(s).