Coherently controlled generation of single-cycle terahertz pulses from a thin layer of nonlinear medium with low-frequency resonances

Abstract

We propose a novel scheme to generate single-cycle terahertz (THz) pulses via reflection of an optical femtosecond pulse train from a thin layer of nonlinear resonant medium. Our method is based on a coherent control of low-frequency oscillations and free induction decay in the medium. The specific single-cycle shape of generated THz pulses requires a plane wavefront and detection in the near field. Our theoretical results pave the way to a new, simple and high-efficiency way to generate single-cycle waveshape-tunable terahertz pulses.