Dynamic control of nonlinear emission by exciton-photon coupling in WS<sub>2</sub> metasurfaces.

Nauman, Mudassar; de Ceglia, Domenico; Yan, Jingshi; Huang, Lujun; Rahmani, Mohsen; De Angelis, Costantino; Miroshnichenko, Andrey E; Lu, Yuerui et al. · Sci Adv · 2025

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Transition metal dichalcogenides are promising quantum materials because of unique exciton-photon interactions. These interactions can be enhanced by coupling with resonant photonic structures, especially in the nonlinear light emission processes like second-harmonic generation (SHG). However, excitonic absorption may dampen SHG. Here, we demonstrate tunable SHG enhancement using virtual coupling effects between quasi-bound state in the continuum (qBIC) optical resonances and tunable excitons in high-index WS<sub>2</sub> metasurfaces with crescent meta-atoms. These metasurfaces promote a magnetic-type qBIC resonance, enabling control over nonlinear optical processes in the visible spectrum. The used qBIC resonance at half the exciton energy increases SHG efficiency by 98-fold compared to monolayer WS<sub>2</sub> and by four orders of magnitude relative to an unpatterned WS<sub>2</sub> film. The enhancement is tunable with temperature and incident light polarization, allowing the dynamic control of virtual coupling and SHG efficiency, thereby paving the way for next-generation reconfigurable metaoptics devices.