Abstract
We introduce a technique to generate compressed broadband terahertz pulses based on cascaded difference-frequency generation. The approach employs a non-uniform sequence of pump pulses in aperiodically poled crystals. The pump-pulse format and poling of crystals conceived are such that the emergent terahertz pulse is already compressed. The method circumvents pump-pulse distortions that result from non-collinear approaches and the need for external compression. While capable of generating even single-cycle pulses, it is particularly efficient for the generation of pulses with few to tens-of-cycles duration. For instance, calculations accounting for cascading effects predict conversion efficiencies in the few percent range for cryogenically-cooled lithium niobate. The focused electric fields are ≫ 100 MV/m in free space.
Highlights
High-field terahertz radiation are important probes for a variety of fundamental scientific investigations [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
We present an approach previously introduced by us in [45, 46], which utilizes aperiodically poled nonlinear crystals to generate broadband terahertz pulses which emerge already compressed
It is worth reiterating that terahertz generation with high conversion efficiency requires cascaded difference-frequency generation (DFG)
Summary
High-field terahertz radiation are important probes for a variety of fundamental scientific investigations [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. A general scheme for broadband phase matching is via the use of tilted pulse fronts [22] in non-collinear geometries This method [23,24,25], amenable for broadband or single-cycle terahertz pulse generation, has produced very high conversion efficiencies and pulse energies in the
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