Nonlinear Negative Refraction by Difference Frequency Generation

Abstract: Negative refraction has attracted much interest for its promising capability in imaging applications. Such an effect can be implemented by negative index meta-materials, however, which are usually accompanied by high loss and demanding fabrication processes. Recently, alternative nonlinear approaches like phase conjugation and four wave mixing have shown advantages of low-loss and easy-to-implement, but associated problems like narrow accepting angles can still halt their practical applications. Here we demonstrate theoretically and experimentally a new scheme to realize negative refraction by nonlinear difference frequency generation with wide tunability, where a thin BBO slice serves as a negative refraction layer bending the input signal beam to the idler beam at a negative angle. Furthermore, we realize optical focusing effect using such nonlinear negative refraction, which may enable many potential applications in imaging science.