Three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear photonic crystals have received intensive interest as an ideal platform to study nonlinear wave interactions and explore their applications. Periodic fork-shaped gratings are extremely important in this context because they are capable of generating second-harmonic vortex beams from a fundamental Gaussian wave, which has versatile applications in optical trapping and materials engineering. However, previous studies mainly focused on the normal incidence of the fundamental Gaussian beam, resulting in symmetric emissions of the second-harmonic vortices. Here we present an experimental study on second-harmonic vortex generation in periodic fork-shaped gratings at oblique incidence, in comparison with the case of normal incidence. More quasi-phase-matching resonant wavelengths have been observed at oblique incidence, and the second-harmonic emissions become asymmetric against the incident beam. These results agree well with theoretic explanations. The oblique incidence of the fundamental wave is also used for the generation of second-harmonic Bessel beams with uniform azimuthal intensity distributions. Our study is important for a deeper understanding of nonlinear interactions in a 3D periodic medium. It also paves the way toward achieving high-quality structured beams at new frequencies, which is important for manipulation of the orbital angular momentum of light.

We demonstrate the generation, spectral broadening and post-compression of second harmonic pulses using a thin beta barium borate (BBO) crystal on a fused-silica substrate as the nonlinear interaction medium. By combining second harmonic generation in the BBO crystal with self-phase modulation in the fused-silica substrate, we efficiently generate millijoule-level broadband violet pulses from a single optical component. The second harmonic spectrum covers a range from long wave ultraviolet (down to 310 nm) to visible (up to 550 nm) with a bandwidth of 65 nm. Subsequently, we compress the second harmonic beam to a duration of 4.8 fs with a pulse energy of 0.64 mJ (5 fs with a pulse energy of 1.05 mJ) using chirped mirrors. The all-solid free-space apparatus is compact, robust and pulse energy scalable, making it highly advantageous for generating intense second harmonic pulses from near-infrared femtosecond lasers in the sub-5 fs regime.

Whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) microresonators can greatly enhance light–matter interaction, making them indispensable units for frequency conversion in nonlinear optics. Efficient nonlinear wave mixing in microresonators requires stringent simultaneous optical resonance and phase-matching conditions. Thus, it is challenging to achieve efficient frequency conversion over a broad bandwidth. Here, we demonstrate broadband second-harmonic generation (SHG) in the x-cut thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) microdisk with a quality factor above 10⁷ by applying the cyclic quasi-phase-matching (CQPM) mechanism, which is intrinsically applicable for broadband operation. Broadband SHG of continuous-wave laser with a maximum normalized conversion efficiency of ∼15%/mW is achieved with a bandwidth spanning over 100 nm in the telecommunication band. Furthermore, broadband SHG of femtosecond lasers, supercontinuum lasers, and amplified spontaneous emission in the telecommunication band is also experimentally observed. The work is beneficial for integrated nonlinear photonics devices like frequency converters and optical frequency comb generator based on second-order nonlinearity on the TFLN platform.

The design of nonlinear photonic Vogel’s spiral based on quasi-crystal theory was demonstrated. Two main parameters of Vogel’s spiral were arranged to obtain multi-reciprocal circles. Typical structure was fabricated by the near-infrared femtosecond laser poling technique, forming a nonlinear photonic structure, and multiple ring-like nonlinear Raman–Nath second-harmonic generation processes were realized and analyzed in detail. The structure for the cascaded third-harmonic generation process was predicted. The results could help deepen the understanding of Vogel’s spiral and quasi-crystal and pave the way for the combination of quasi-crystal theory with more aperiodic structures.

We propose a spatially chirped quasi-phase-matching (QPM) scheme that enables ultrabroadband second-harmonic-generation (SHG) by using a fan-out QPM grating to frequency-convert a spatially chirped fundamental wave. A “zero-dispersion” 4f system maps the spectral contents of ultrabroadband fundamental onto different spatial coordinates in the Fourier plane, where the fundamental is quasi-monochromatic locally in picosecond duration, fundamentally canceling high-order phase mismatch. A fan-out QPM grating characterized by a linear variation of the poling period along the transverse direction exactly supports the QPM of the spatially chirped beam. We theoretically demonstrate the SHG of an 810-nm, 12.1-fs pulse into a 405-nm, 10.2-fs pulse with a conversion efficiency of 77%.