Generation and polarization control of coherent vacuum ultraviolet light using the nonlinear optical response of dielectric membrane metasurface

Kuniaki Konishi^1*

¹Institute for Photon Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

* Presenter:Kuniaki Konishi, email:kkonishi@ipst.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Coherent light sources operating in the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) region in the 100–200-nm (6–12 eV) wavelength range have important spectroscopic applications in many research fields, such as time-resolved angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and circular dichroism measurement of biomolecules. However, the complexity of their experimental setups and the scarcity of bulk nonlinear crystals for VUV generation have hampered their widespread use.
Here, we propose and demonstrate that using a free-standing dielectric nanomembrane is a simple and practical method for coherent VUV light generation and polarization control. We have demonstrated that a dielectric free-standing nanomembrane with a thickness of several hundred nanometers can generate coherent vacuum ultraviolet light efficiently based on third harmonic generation (THG). We have also demonstrated the generation of circularly polarized VUV THG in a dielectric nanomembrane with a square periodic lattice of circular holes, which is a dielectric membrane metasurface. The presented results show that nanomembranes and their nanostructures are an effective new way to generate and control vacuum ultraviolet coherent light.

Keywords: Vacuum ultraviolet, Nonlinear optics, Metasurface, Mambrane, Photonic crystal