Broadband terahertz generation by optical rectification of ultrashort multiterawatt laser pulses near the beam breakup threshold. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • We identify the physical factors that limit the terahertz (THz) yield of an optical rectification (OR) of ultrashort multiterawatt laser pulses in large-area quadratically nonlinear crystals. We show that the THz yield tends to slow its growth as a function of the laser driver energy, saturate, and eventually decrease as the laser beam picks up a spatiotemporal phase due to the intensity-dependent refraction of the OR crystal. We demonstrate that, with a careful management of the driver intensity aimed at keeping the nonlinear length larger than the coherence length, OR-based broadband THz generation in large-area lithium niobate (LN) crystals is energy-scalable, enabling an OR of multiterawatt laser pulses, yielding 10J/cm2 of THz output energy per unit crystal area. With a 27-fs, 10-TW, 800-nm Ti:sapphire laser output used as a driver for OR in large-area LN crystals, this approach is shown to provide a THz output with a pulse energy above 10 J and a bandwidth extending well beyond 6 THz, supporting single-cycle THz waveforms.

published proceedings

  • Opt Lett

altmetric score

  • 7

author list (cited authors)

  • Nazarov, M. M., Shcheglov, P. A., Teplyakov, V. V., Chashchin, M. V., Mitrofanov, A. V., Sidorov-Biryukov, D. A., Panchenko, V. Y., & Zheltikov, A. M.

citation count

  • 3

complete list of authors

  • Nazarov, MM||Shcheglov, PA||Teplyakov, VV||Chashchin, MV||Mitrofanov, AV||Sidorov-Biryukov, DA||Panchenko, VY||Zheltikov, AM

publication date

  • December 2021