Cascaded second harmonic generation with a half-order periodic poling

We theoretically demonstrate cascaded fourth and second harmonic generation in a periodically-poled nonlinear crystal with a half-order of phase-matching period. We consider a cascaded process in which four photons of the fundamental harmonic firstly convert into an intermediate photon of the fourth harmonic, which parametrically decays into two photons of the second harmonic at the second stage. Phase-matching for this cascaded nonlinear conversion is provided by using an asymmetric periodical poling. We use the quantum spatial Heisenberg equations to describe light propagation and conversion inside the nonlinear crystal. With this approach, we calculate second and fourth harmonic average number of photons as a function of the nonlinear crystal length.