Giant magneto-refractive effect in mid-infrared second-harmonic generation from plasmonic antennas

Abstract

Active modulation of nonlinear-optical response from metallic nanostructures can be realized with an external magnetic field. We report a resonant 20% magneto-refractive modulation in second-harmonic generation (SHG) from spintronic multilayer antennas in the mid-infrared. We discuss mechanisms of this modulation and show that it cannot be explained by an unequal enhancement of the electromagnetic field. Instead, we propose a novel, to the best of our knowledge, contribution to the nonlinear susceptibility, which relies on the spin-dependent electron mean free path. In contrast to magneto-optics in ferromagnets, our approach allows simultaneous observation of the enhanced SHG and its large modulation.