Title :
Terahertz death ray
Author :
Hebling, János ; Yeh, Ka-Lo ; Hoffmann, Matthias C. ; Nelson, Keith A.
Author_Institution :
Massachusetts Inst. of Technol., Cambridge, MA
Abstract :
Generation of near single-cycle pulses centered at 0.5 THz frequency with up to 10 muJ energy, 100 muW average power, and 5.0 MW peak power was demonstrated by tilting the intensity front of a femtosecond optical pump pulse from a 10 Hz Ti: sapphire laser to match the phonon-polariton phase velocity to the group velocity of the pump pulses in a lithium niobate crystal. THz pulse intensity as high as 10 MW/cm2 was achieved. The photon conversion efficiency was 45% and the calculated peak electric field strength at the focus of an off-axis parabolic mirror was 600 kV/cm.
Keywords :
optical pumping; polaritons; sapphire; submillimetre wave generation; MW peak power; THz frequency; femtosecond optical pump pulse; lithium niobate crystal; off-axis parabolic mirror; peak electric field strength; phonon-polariton phase velocity; photon conversion; pump pulses; sapphire laser; single-cycle pulses; terahertz death ray; Frequency; Laser excitation; Lithium niobate; Optical pulse generation; Optical pumping; Photonic crystals; Power generation; Power lasers; Pump lasers; Ultrafast optics; Terahertz; optical rectification; polaritonics; ultrafast electro-optics;
Conference_Titel :
Infrared and Millimeter Waves, 2007 and the 2007 15th International Conference on Terahertz Electronics. IRMMW-THz. Joint 32nd International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Cardiff
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-1438-3
DOI :
10.1109/ICIMW.2007.4516428
