Benefiting from the large third-order nonlinear susceptibility of graphene and significantly enhanced field intensity of graphene plasmons (GPs), graphene has shown great potentials to enhance plasmonic third-harmonic generation conversion efficiency. However, it still lacks an effective configuration that can excite the fundamental frequency (FF) GPs and guide the generated third-harmonic frequency (THF) GPs simultaneously. Here, we have proposed a diffractive silicon grating underneath a graphene sheet to generate and transmit THF GPs. The FF GPs are efficiently excited by illuminating a normal-incidence plane wave due to guided-mode resonance and then are converted to the THF GPs with a large conversion efficiency, originating from the giant field intensity of the FF GPs. We numerically demonstrate that, a large third-harmonic generation conversion efficiency of 3.68 × 10-7 can be realized with a small incident power density of 0.19 MW/cm2 at 28.62 μm. Furthermore, the generated THF GPs can be efficiently guided along low-loss GP waveguides that are connected to both sides of grating section. Our results can stimulate making graphene-based light sources for mid- and far-infrared silicon photonics.
Keywords: Graphene; Integrated optics; Surface plasmon; Third-harmonic generation.