Abstract
The brightness of a light source defines its applicability to nonlinear phenomena in science. Bright low-frequency terahertz (<5 THz) radiation confined to a diffraction-limited spot size is a present hurdle because of the broad bandwidth and long wavelengths associated with terahertz (THz) pulses and because of the lack of THz wavefront correctors. Here using a present-technology system, we employ a wavefront manipulation concept with focusing optimization leading to spatio-temporal confinement of THz energy at its physical limits to the least possible three-dimensional light bullet volume of wavelength-cubic. Our scheme relies on finding the optimum settings of pump wavefront curvature and post generation beam divergence. This leads to a regime of extremely bright PW m(-2) level THz radiation with peak fields up to 8.3 GV m(-1) and 27.7 T surpassing by far any other system. The presented results are foreseen to have a great impact on nonlinear THz applications in different science disciplines.
Highlights
The brightness of a light source defines its applicability to nonlinear phenomena in science
In this report, using a conventional and collinear THz generation scheme based on optical rectification in the smallsize, highly efficient organic crystals DSTMS and OH1, we present a concept based on pump-pulse divergence control where the THz wavefront and imaging is engineered to reach the ultimate confinement of a THz pulse in the l3 volume
Efficient THz energy extraction from organic crystals has previously been reported[19,20], the advance of the present work is the introduction of an effective scheme for enhanced THz wavefront and beam profile control and improved THz beam transport of the multi-octave spanning THz radiation, which compensates for aberrations originating from the source and from THz imaging optics
Summary
The brightness of a light source defines its applicability to nonlinear phenomena in science. Bright low-frequency terahertz (o5 THz) radiation confined to a diffraction-limited spot size is a present hurdle because of the broad bandwidth and long wavelengths associated with terahertz (THz) pulses and because of the lack of THz wavefront correctors. Our scheme relies on finding the optimum settings of pump wavefront curvature and post generation beam divergence This leads to a regime of extremely bright PW m À 2 level THz radiation with peak fields up to 8.3 GVm À 1 and 27.7 T surpassing by far any other system. The maximum reported field using LiNbO3 was demonstrated at significantly lower pulse energy (3 mJ) only This is a direct consequence of shortened THz beam quality induced mm mm mm (z) y (μm). Much brighter radiation is expected from collinearly pumped THz schemes as the THz pulse front is untilted and the intensity profile is expected to be similar to the pump profile
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