TY - JOUR
T1 - Boosting classical and quantum nonlinear processes in ultrathin van der Waals materials
AU - Lyu, Xiaodan
AU - Kallioniemi, Leevi
AU - Cai, Hongbing
AU - An, Liheng
AU - Duan, Ruihuan
AU - Wu, Shuin Jian
AU - Tan, Qinghai
AU - Zhang, Chusheng
AU - He, Ruihua
AU - Miao, Yansong
AU - Liu, Zheng
AU - Ling, Alexander
AU - Zúñiga-Perez, Jesus
AU - Gao, Weibo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2025.
PY - 2025/12
Y1 - 2025/12
N2 - Understanding and controlling nonlinear processes is crucial for engineering light-matter interaction and generating non-classical light. A significant challenge in ultra-thin nonlinear materials is the marked diminution of the nonlinear conversion efficiency due to the reduced light-matter interaction length and, in many cases, the centrosymmetric crystalline structures. Here we relax these limitations and report a giant boost of classical and quantum nonlinear processes in ultrathin van der Waals materials. Specifically, with a metal-nonlinear material heterostructure we enhance classical second-harmonic generation in h-BN flakes by two orders of magnitude. Moreover, we have engineered a metal-SiO2-nonlinear material heterostructure resulting in a remarkable two orders of magnitude augmentation of the quantum spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in NbOCl2 flakes. Notably, we demonstrate SPDC in a 16 nm-thick NbOCl2 flake integrated into the proposed structure. These findings simplify on-chip quantum state engineering and accelerate the use of van der Waals materials in nonlinear optoelectronics.
AB - Understanding and controlling nonlinear processes is crucial for engineering light-matter interaction and generating non-classical light. A significant challenge in ultra-thin nonlinear materials is the marked diminution of the nonlinear conversion efficiency due to the reduced light-matter interaction length and, in many cases, the centrosymmetric crystalline structures. Here we relax these limitations and report a giant boost of classical and quantum nonlinear processes in ultrathin van der Waals materials. Specifically, with a metal-nonlinear material heterostructure we enhance classical second-harmonic generation in h-BN flakes by two orders of magnitude. Moreover, we have engineered a metal-SiO2-nonlinear material heterostructure resulting in a remarkable two orders of magnitude augmentation of the quantum spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in NbOCl2 flakes. Notably, we demonstrate SPDC in a 16 nm-thick NbOCl2 flake integrated into the proposed structure. These findings simplify on-chip quantum state engineering and accelerate the use of van der Waals materials in nonlinear optoelectronics.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-025-58449-3
DO - 10.1038/s41467-025-58449-3
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:105006927206
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 16
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 4987
ER -