Observation of highly efficient second-harmonic generation at the nanoscale driven by bound states in the continuum

Recent developments in the physics of Mie-resonant high-index dielectric nanostructures suggested a promising pathway to improve efficiencies of the nonlinear light conversion beyond the limits imposed by plasmonics. Here, we employ the concept of bound states in the continuum to experimentally demonstrate a sharp enhancement of the second-harmonic generation efficiency at localized states formed via destructive interference of two leaky modes. For an AlGaAs subwavelength disk with optimized parameters, pumped with a structured light and placed on an engineered multilayered substrate, we observe the record-high conversion efficiency compared to the previous demonstrations with isolated subwavelength resonators.