Second harmonic conversion in cubic silicon carbide at 1.06 μm

In this letter, we describe second harmonic conversion in cubic silicon carbide (β-SiC) at a wavelength of 1.06 μm. Epitaxial layers of β-SiC formed by vapor phase growth on silicon are indeed birefringent, and thus phase matchable. Phase matched films of β-SiC have respectable conversion efficiencies even in the presence of adsorption at 532 nm. Our measured value of the effective second order nonlinear susceptibility for β-SiC is χ(2)eff=1.05±0.3×10−9 esu.