Second Harmonic Generation: Pathways of Nonlinear Photonics

Second harmonic generation (SHG) has a wide range of applications in today's technological era, including nonlinear optics, quantum optics, lasers, material science, medical science, biological imaging, and high-resolution optical microscopy. In the laser industry, for example, SHG is prudent to create wavelength-specific high-energy lasers. It is also used to measure ultra-short pulse width with autocorrelators. SHG is now indispensable as a spectroscopic imaging tool in applications, such as biophysical characterization of the plasma membrane, biological sensing, disease diagnostics, and investigations of biomolecular interactions at interfaces. Because of its non-destructive detection, ultrafast response, and polarization sensitivity, SHG is exploited to describe crystal structures and materials. The use of SHG to characterize two-dimensional (2D) material structures gives crucial insights into their physical properties, thereby promoting the development of the relevant basic research, leading to the investigation of the potential applications of those materials. Developments in SHG research hold promising potentials of a large class of materials, such as magnetic- and nonmagnetic layered materials, perovskites, antiferromagnetic oxides, II-VI and III-V semiconductors, and nanotubes, for a variety of technological applications. This book focuses on the process of modelling and simulations of the SHG phenomenon in the area of nonlinear and quantum optics. The first chapter provides a visualization of the scientific landscape of research in SHG using scientometric analysis from 1962 to 2020 based on Scopus database. This chapter gives new postgraduate students in the subject useful information on hot themes in SHG research and how they are related to one another. There is also a brief mention of multinational collaborative networks. The following four research chapters look at the SHG from a classical standpoint, using Maxwell's equations to describe the nonlinear optical interaction between the electromagnetic wave and the medium. Such interaction is treated quantum mechanically in the second section of the book, with the SHG process described using a propagating Hamiltonian. As such, the volume adequately describes the SHG from both the classical and quantum mechanical standpoints. This allows the postgraduate researchers, focusing on the nonlinear phenomena, resulting from light-matter interaction, to find the content useful. In the second part of this volume, readers are introduced to a full theoretical analysis of the quantum features generated in certain optical devices, such as a two-waveguide device working under the SHG and coupled waveguide arrays with the combined second- and third-order nonlinear effects. To be more specific, this part discusses how SHG-enabled devices might be a useful source of nonclassical light. This section remains relevant for postgraduate students commencing their studies in quantum optics, where the nonclassical phenomena, such as squeezing and entanglement, require a solid understanding of the underlying techniques, namely the phase space and the analytical perturbative methods.