Laterally emitted surface second harmonic generation in a single ZnTe nanowire

We report a direct observation on the unique laterally emitted surface second harmonic generation (SHG) in a single ZnTe nanowire. The highly directional surface SHG signal that polarizes along the direction vertical to the nanowire growth axis, is significantly larger than the bulk SHG contribution, indicating a high efficiency of surface SHG. Two strong SHG peaks are observed on both sides of the nanowire surfaces in the far-field scanning images, which is further supported by FDTD simulations, demonstrating that the unique laterally emitted signal is ascribed to surface SHG in the ZnTe nanowire. The surface SHG in a single ZnTe nanowire with unique lateral emission and high conversion efficiency shows great potential applications in short-wavelength nanolasers, nonlinear microscopy and polarization dependent photonic integrating.