Tunable third harmonic generation based on high-Q polarization-controlled hybrid phase-change metasurface

Dielectric metasurfaces have made significant advancements in the past decade for enhancing light–matter interaction at the nanoscale. Particularly, bound states in the continuum (BICs) based on dielectric metasurfaces have been employed to enhance nonlinear harmonic generation. However, conventional nonlinear metasurfaces are typically fixed in their operating wavelength after fabrication. In this work, we numerically demonstrate tunable third harmonic generation (THG) by integrating a dielectric metasurface with the phase-change material Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST). The hybrid phase-change metasurface can support two BICs with different electromagnetic origins, which are transformed into two high-Q quasi-BICs through the introduction of structural asymmetry. The two quasi-BICs are selectively excited by controlling the polarization of incident light, and their wavelengths are tunable due to the phase transition of GST. Notably, the efficiency of THG is significantly enhanced at the fundamental wavelengths corresponding to the two quasi-BICs, and the operating wavelength for THG enhancement can be dynamically tuned through the GST phase transition. Furthermore, the wavelength of THG enhancement can be further tuned by manipulating the polarization of pump light. Additionally, a high-Q analog of electromagnetically induced transparency is numerically achieved through the interaction between a low-Q Mie resonance and a quasi-BIC mode, which also improves the THG efficiency. The high-Q polarization-controlled hybrid phase-change metasurface holds promise for applications in dynamically tunable nonlinear optical devices.