All-optical control of nonlinear emission from resonant metasurfaces

Abstract

Nonlinear optics underpins a broad range of photonic technologies, from classical and quantum light sources to emerging nonlinear photonic neural networks. Yet, conventional nonlinear-optical devices exhibit static functionality: Their transfer characteristics and emission profiles are dictated by the intrinsic nonlinear process and locked by fabrication, limiting adaptability. Here, we introduce an ultrathin metasurface platform that enables dynamic reconfiguration of nonlinear functionality in a contactless fashion. By leveraging all-optical control of the optical torque exerted on liquid crystal molecules infiltrating a resonant metasurface, we achieve tunable polynomial nonlinear transfer functions based on the third-harmonic generation process. This mechanism further allows reconfigurable modulation of nonlinear weighting across different diffraction orders, revealing a previously unexplored interplay between mode structure and nonlinear emission. Our approach opens up a pathway toward field-programmable nonlinear photonic systems, offering unprecedented flexibility for reconfigurable nonlinear signal processing and adaptive photonic computing.