Abstract-Demonstration of a low-frequency three-dimensional terahertz bullet with extreme brightness

• Mostafa Shalaby
• & Christoph P. Hauri

• Affiliations
• Contributions
• Corresponding authors

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150116/ncomms6976/full/ncomms6976.html

Nature Communications

 

6,

 

Article number:

 

5976

 

doi:10.1038/ncomms6976

Received

 

04 July 2014 

Accepted

 

28 November 2014 

Published

 

16 January 2015

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⁻²level 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.