Abstract-Millijoule-scale narrowband terahertz pulses via phase manipulation of pump laser pulses

Spencer W. Jolly, Nicholas H. Matlis, Frederike Ahr, Vincent Leroux, Timo Eichner, Anne-Laure Calendron, Hideki Ishizuki, Takunori Taira, Franz X. Kärtner, Andreas R. Maier

https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.02508

Electromagnetic radiation at terahertz (THz) frequencies is a useful tool in probing and controlling matter and light in new and interesting ways, especially at high peak-fields and pulse energies. Generating THz radiation often employs nonlinear optical processes, for which the overlapping of stretched, broadband near-infrared (NIR) pulse copies within nonlinear crystals is common. Here we show that for narrowband THz generation, the higher-order phase present on the NIR pulses offers control of the properties of the THz, for example creating temporally complex THz with multiplexed NIR pulses. We manipulate the phase of two NIR pump pulses independently to remove higher order effects and generate record mJ-level THz in two crystals simultaneously, with an average total energy of 604 microjoule at 361 GHz with 1% bandwidth. This high pulse energy combined with such a narrow bandwidth has broad implications for accelerator applications, resonant driven material studies, and nonlinear THz spectroscopy.