Electrically Biased Silicon Metasurfaces with Magnetic Mie Resonance for Tunable Harmonic Generation of Light

The pursuit of chip-scale and compact data processing capacity in a complementary metal oxide semiconductor-compatible fashion has promoted the investigation of silicon-based photonic platforms for active optical functionalities via the nonlinear light–matter interactions. Crystal inversion symmetry, however, prohibits the second-order nonlinear processes in silicon under the electric dipole approximation. To address such a limitation, here we utilize electrical signaling to demonstrate electric-field-induced second harmonic generation in silicon metasurfaces that support a strong magnetic Mie resonance. Furthermore, significantly enhanced second-harmonic generation from the surface is achieved due to a strong circulating electric field induced by the magnetic Mie resonance mode. Our experimental characterizations and numerical modeling reveal that the efficiency of the field-induced frequency doubling peaks in the spectral vicinity of magnetic behavior, substantiating the synergic role of Mie resonances on the nonlinear optical generation from the silicon platform. Our finding reveals a generic route toward the dynamic control of second-order nonlinear processes, such as sum/difference frequency generation, optical rectification, and Pockels effect, in electrically active silicon metasurfaces.