Modal engineering of second-harmonic generation in single GaP nanopillars

We report on modal dispersion engineering for second-harmonic generation (SHG) from single vertical GaP nanopillars/nanowaveguides, fabricated by a top-down approach, using optical modal overlap between the pump (830 nm) and SHG (415 nm). We present a modal analysis for the SHG process in GaP nanopillars and demonstrate efficient utilization of the longitudinal component of the nonlinear polarization density. Our SHG measurements show quantitatively the presented model. We experimentally demonstrate that polarization beam shaping and field distribution modification of the radiated SHG light, at nanometer scale, can be achieved by tuning the pillar diameter and linear pump polarization. SHG from single pillars can be used as femtosecond nanoscopic light sources at visible wavelengths applicable for single cell/molecular imaging and interesting for future integrated nanophotonics components. While this work focuses on GaP nanopillars, the results are applicable to other semiconductor nanowire materials and synthesis methods.