Nonlinear wavefront shaping with optically induced three-dimensional nonlinear photonic crystals

Generation of coherent light with desirable amplitude and phase profiles throughout the optical spectrum is a key issue in optical technologies. Nonlinear wavefront shaping offers an exceptional way to achieve this goal by converting an incident light beam into the beam (or beams) of different frequency with spatially modulated amplitude and phase. The realization of such frequency conversion and shaping processes critically depends on the matching of phase velocities of interacting waves, for which nonlinear photonic crystals (NPCs) with spatially modulated quadratic nonlinearity have shown great potential. Here, we present the first experimental demonstration of nonlinear wavefront shaping with three-dimensional (3D) NPCs formed by ultrafast-light-induced ferroelectric domain inversion approach. Compared with those previously used low-dimensional structures, 3D NPCs provide all spatial degrees of freedom for the compensation of phase mismatch in nonlinear interactions and thereby constitute an unprecedented system for the generation and control of coherent light at new frequencies.