Enhancement of second-harmonic generation based on the cascaded second- and third-order nonlinear processes in a multimode optical microcavity

Optical microcavities are often used to realize enhanced nonlinear optical interactions for highly efficient second-harmonic generation. With increased pump power, the efficiency of nonlinear frequency conversion can be increased further, whereas some other unwanted nonlinear effects will also emerge, leading to complicated dynamics or instability. Here, we study the interplay between cascaded second- and third-order nonlinear processes and investigate their impact on the second-harmonic generation in microcavities. It is found that the nondegenerate optical parametric oscillation (OPO) appears and the presence of a χ(3) process can modify the OPO threshold significantly when the multimode cavity is strongly pumped at the fundamental optical mode. One can even break the efficiency limitation of the second-harmonic mode restricted by the OPO by utilizing the interference between the OPO and the four-wave mixing. The present coherent interplay between nonlinear optical processes in the microcavities is conducive to explore new physics in the cavity nonlinear photonics. © 2018 American Physical Society.