Characterization of the second-harmonic response of a silver–air interface

We present an experimental study of second-harmonic generation in the light reflected from a flat silver surface. It is discussed that the harmonic generation from such a surface may be expressed in terms of the three unique elements of its effective surface susceptibility tensor. A method is proposed to determine the susceptibilities by measuring the second-harmonic power with different polarization conditions. By employing a picosecond light source and photon-counting techniques, we determine the susceptibilities and compare our results with previous work.