All-Optical Generation and Detection of Coherent Acoustic Vibrations in Single Gallium Phosphide Nanoantennas Probed near the Anapole Excitation

Abstract

Nanostructured high-index dielectrics have shown great promise as low-loss photonic platforms for wavefront control and enhancing optical nonlinearities. However, their potential as optomechanical resonators has remained unexplored. In this work, we investigate the generation and detection of coherent acoustic phonons in individual crystalline gallium phosphide nanodisks on silica in a pump–probe configuration. By pumping the dielectric above its bandgap energy and probing over its transparent region, we observe the radial breathing mode of the disk with an oscillation frequency around 10 GHz. We find that the detection efficiency peaks near the fundamental anapole state, matching numerical simulations. By comparing to reference gold plasmonic resonators, the dielectric nanoantennas display a modulation amplitude up to ∼5 times larger. We further demonstrate the launching of acoustic waves through the underlaying substrate and the mechanical coupling between two nanostructures placed 3 μm apart, laying the basis for photonic-phononic signal processing using dielectric nanoantennas.