Abstract

As the accessibility of nanostructured materials offered by modern nanofabrication techniques continues to increase, so does interest in mastering nonlinear optics on subwavelength scales. Applications for nonlinear optical nanomaterials include optical microscopy, biological imaging/detection, and signal conversion in nanoscale photonic devices. However, nanomaterials inherently possess small volumes with which optical fields can interact appreciably, severely limiting the efficiencies of nonlinear optical processes. The intense near-field enhancement associated with localized plasmons partially alleviates this situation, and is responsible for the record-high nonlinear polarizabilities observed in noble metal nanoparticles [1].

© 2015 IEEE