Probing the Near-Field of Second-Harmonic Light around Plasmonic Nanoantennas

We introduce a new concept that enables subwavelength polarization-resolved probing of the second harmonic near-field distribution of plasmonic nanostructures. As a local sensor, this method utilizes aluminum nanoantennas, which are resonant to the second-harmonic wavelength and which allow to efficiently scatter the local second-harmonic light to the far-field. We place these sensors into the second harmonic near-field generated by plasmonic nanostructures and carefully vary their position and orientation. Observing the second-harmonic light resonantly scattered by the aluminum nanoantennas provides polarization-resolved information about the local second-harmonic near-field distribution. We then investigate the polarization-resolved second-harmonic near-field of inversion symmetric gold dipole nanoantennas. Interestingly, we find strong evidence that the second-harmonic dipole is predominantly oriented perpendicular to the gold nanoantenna long axis, although the excitation laser is polarized parallel to the nanoantennas. We believe that our investigations will help to disentangle the highly debated origin of the second harmonic response of inversion symmetric plasmonic structures. Furthermore, we believe that our new method, which enables the measurement of local nonlinear electric fields, will find widespread implementation and applications in nonlinear near-field optical microscopy.