Nonlinear wavefront control by geometric-phase dielectric metasurfaces: Influence of mode field and rotational symmetry

Abstract: Nonlinear Pancharatnam-Berry phase metasurfaces facilitate the nontrivial phase modulation for frequency conversion processes by leveraging photon-spin dependent nonlinear geometric-phases. However, plasmonic metasurfaces show some severe limitation for nonlinear frequency conversion due to the intrinsic high ohmic loss and low damage threshold of plasmonic nanostructures. Here, we systematically study the nonlinear geometric-phases associated with the third-harmonic generation process occurring in all-dielectric metasurfaces, which are composed of silicon nanofins with different in-plane rotational symmetries. We find that the wave coupling among different field components of the resonant fundamental field gives rise to the appearance of different nonlinear geometric-phases of the generated third-harmonic signals. The experimental observations of the nonlinear beam steering and nonlinear holography realized in this work by all-dielectric geometric-phase metasurfaces are well explained with our developed theory. Our work offers a new physical picture to understand the nonlinear optical process occurring at nanoscale dielectric resonators and will help in the design of nonlinear metasurfaces with tailored phase properties.