https://doi.org/10.1051/epjam/2022011
Research Article
Free electron harmonic generation in heavily doped semiconductors: the role of the materials properties
1
Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Center for Biomolecular Nanotechnologies, Via Barsanti 14, 73010 Arnesano, Italy
2
Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica “E. De Giorgi,” Università del Salento, via Arnesano, 73100 Lecce, Italy
3
Department of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy
4
Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Center for Life NanoSciences, Viale Regina Elena 291, 00161 Rome, Italy
* e-mail: federico.deluca@iit.it
Received:
23
October
2021
Accepted:
1
April
2022
Published online: 22 June 2022
Heavily doped semiconductors have emerged as low-loss and tunable materials for plasmonics at mid-infrared frequencies. We analyze the nonlinear optical response of free electrons and show how nonlinear optical phenomena associated with high electron concentration are influenced by the intrinsic properties of semiconductors, namely background permittivity and effective mass. We apply our recently developed hydrodynamic description that takes into account nonlinear contributions up to the third order, usually negligible for noble metals, to compare third-harmonic generation from InP, Ge, GaAs, Si, ITO and InSb. We show how free electron nonlinearities may be enhanced with a proper choice of the semiconductor.
Key words: Semiconductor plasmonics / infrared photonics / nonlinear optics / hydrodynamic model / third-harmonic generation
© F. De Luca et al., Published by EDP Sciences, 2022
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
