Nonlinear nonlocal metasurfaces

Abstract

Optical metasurfaces have recently emerged as the game changer in light manipulation and opened up new perspectives in many subfields of optics and photonics. Recent developments in nonlocal metasurfaces, in which the nanoscale building blocks respond to the incoming light collectively rather than as individual objects, are especially promising for enhancing and controlling the nonlinear optical phenomena. In this article, we provide a brief overview of the basic principles of nonlocal metasurfaces in the context of their nonlinear optical functionalities. We discuss the origin and the regimes of the nonlocal response, covering the aspects of multiple scattering, radiation damping, quality factor, local-field enhancement, and temporal dynamics. Some important aspects are illustrated by computational examples. We also give our personal viewpoint on the selected ideas and research directions in nonlocal and nonlinear metasurfaces, including the role of spatial symmetry in nonlocal interactions, the effects of phase and momentum matching in frequency conversion, as well as the possibilities offered by new material platforms and novel concepts, such as bound states in the continuum, parity–time symmetry, and time-variant metasurfaces.