  Within the framework of nonrelativistic QCD (NRQCD) factorization formalism,
we compute the helicity amplitude as well as the decay width of $\eta_{Q2}$
($Q=c,b$) electromagnetic decay into two photons up to next-to-next-to-leading
order (NNLO) in $\alpha_s$ expansion. For the first time, we verify the
validity of NRQCD factorization for the D-wave quarkonium decay at NNLO. We
find that the $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s)$ and $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s^2)$ corrections
to the helicity amplitude are negative and moderate, nevertheless both
corrections combine to suppress the leading-order prediction for the decay
width significantly. By approximating the total decay width of $\eta_{Q2}$ as
the sum of those for the hadronic decay and the electric $E1$ transition, we
obtain the branching ratios ${\rm Br}(\eta_{c2}\to 2\gamma)\approx
5\times10^{-6}$ and ${\rm Br}(\eta_{b2}\to 2\gamma)\approx 4\times10^{-7}$. To
explore the potential measurement on $\eta_{Q2}$, we further evaluate the
production cross section of $\eta_{Q2}$ at LHCb at the lowest order in
$\alpha_s$ expansion. With the kinematic constraint on the longitudinal
rapidity $4.5>y>2$ and transverse momentum $P_T>(2-4)m_Q$ for $\eta_{Q2}$, we
find the cross section can reach $2-50$ nb for $\eta_{c2}$, and $1-22$ pb for
$\eta_{b2}$. Considering the integrated luminosity $\mathcal{L}=10\, {\rm
fb}^{-1}$ at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV and $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV, we estimate that there are
several hundreds events of $pp\to \eta_{c2}\to 2\gamma$. Since the background
is relatively clean, it is promising to reconstruct $\eta_{c2}$ through its
electromagnetic decay. On the contrary, due to small branching ratio and
production cross section, it is quite challenging to detect $\eta_{b2}\to
2\gamma$ at LHCb.
