Phase-matched second-harmonic generation in a ferroelectric liquid crystal waveguide

Thin-film lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) has emerged as a superior integrated-photonics platform for linear, nonlinear, and electro-optics. Here we combine quasi-phase-matching, dispersion engineering, and tight mode confinement to realize nonlinear parametric processes with both high efficiency and wide wavelength tunability. On a millimeter-long, Z-cut LNOI waveguide, we demonstrate ultra-efficient ($1900\pm500 \% $W$^{-1}$cm$^{-2}$) and highly tunable (-1.71 nm/K) sec...

Nematic liquid crystals exhibit nanosecond electro-optic response to an applied electric field which modifies the degree of orientational order without realigning the molecular orientation. However, this nanosecond electrically-modified order parameter (NEMOP) effect requires high driving fields, on the order of 100 V/um for a modest birefringence change of 0.01. In this work, we demonstrate that a nematic phase of the recently discovered ferroelectric nematic materials exhib...

Phase-matched nonlinear processes exhibit a tradeoff between the conversion efficiency and the acceptance bandwidth. Adiabatic nonlinear processes, in which the phase mismatch varies slowly along the interaction length, enable us to overcome this tradeoff, allowing an efficient frequency conversion with broad spectral and thermal bandwidths. Until now, the variation in the phase mismatch condition was mainly based on quasi-phase matching in ferroelectric crystals. However, th...

Recent experimental realization of ferroelectric nematic liquid crystalline phases stimulated material development and numerous experimental studies of these new phases, guided by their fundamental and applicative interest. In this Perspective, we give an overview of this emerging field by linking history and theoretical predictions to a general outlook of the development and properties of the materials exhibiting ferroelectric nematic phases. We will highlight the most relev...

The ferroelectric nematic phase (N$_{\text{F}}$) has quickly become the most studied system in liquid crystal research. In this work, we investigate the origin of such polar structure by studying a compound for which the N$_{\text{F}}$ phase directly follows the isotropic liquid phase on cooling, making it a particularly interesting system. Our experimental results evidence the presence of polar correlations already in the high-temperature phase, in which ferroelectric order ...

Second harmonic generation is investigated in lithium niobate channels realized by proton exchange and quasi-phase-matched by surface periodic-poling. The reduction in conversion efficiency at high powers is interpreted in terms of multi-photon absorption via two-color terms, yielding an estimate of the dominating three-photon process.

Ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) couple the direction of their spontaneous electric polarization to the direction of tilt of their optic axis. Consequently, reversal of the electric polarization by an electric field gives rise to an immediate and lasting optical response when an appropriately aligned FLC is observed between crossed polarizers, with one field direction yielding a dark image, and the opposite direction yielding a bright image. Here this peculiar electro-opt...

Highly-tunable coherent light generation is crucial for many important photonic applications. Second-harmonic generation (SHG) is a dominant approach for this purpose, which, however, exhibits a trade-off between the conversion efficiency and the wavelength tunability in a conventional nonlinear platform. Recent development of the integrated lithium niobate (LN) technology makes it possible to achieve a large wavelength tuning while maintaining a high conversion efficiency. H...

We demonstrated a large enhancement of Kerr electro-optic nonlinearity through cascaded Pockels effects in a domain inversion ferroelectric crystal. We designed a structure that can implement the cascaded Pockels effects and second-harmonic generation simultaneously. The energy coupling between the fundamental lights of different polarizations led to a large nonlinear phase shift, and thus an effective electro-optic nonlinear refractive index. The effective nonlinearity can b...

Ferroelectric ordering in liquids is a fundamental question of physics. Here, we show that ferroelectric ordering of the molecules causes formation of recently reported splay nematic liquid-crystalline phase. As shown by dielectric spectroscopy, the transition between the uniaxial and the splay nematic phase has the characteristics of a ferroelectric phase transition, which drives an orientational ferroelastic transition via flexoelectric coupling. The polarity of the splay p...