Making and breaking terahertz waves with fluid plasmas

Journal Article · Wed Aug 30 00:00:00 EDT 2023 · Photonics Insights

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3788/pi.2023.c05· OSTI ID:2205062

Pettine, Jacob Andrew ^[1]; Chen, Hou-Tong ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Vigorous research efforts during the past several decades have successfully closed the “terahertz gap” between microwaves and infrared light, offering new and increasingly efficient ways to produce, detect, and manipulate radiation fields in the terahertz (THz) frequency range. In our laboratory, THz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) and optical-pump THz-probe (OPTP) experiments have been routinely utilized as ultrafast spectroscopy tools to investigate a variety of emerging quantum materials and metamaterials. The ultrafast THz pulses are produced by femtosecond laser excitation of photoconductive antennas, semiconductor surfaces (InAs), and nonlinear crystals (ZnTe, GaSe, and LiNbO₃). Photoconductive antennas and nonlinear crystals also allow for the coherent detection of these pulses in the time domain, with amplitude and phase spectra obtained in the frequency domain via fast Fourier transform. Although such solid-state schemes are highly desirable in many aspects and thus also commonly utilized in many research laboratories and industrial applications, they typically suffer from limited bandwidths due to the absorption and frequency dispersion induced primarily by phonon resonances, limiting THz applications such as spectroscopy of emerging materials, imaging and detection, and biomedical characterization.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
• Grant/Contract Number: 89233218CNA000001
• OSTI ID: 2205062
• Report Number(s): LA-UR--23-28752
• Journal Information: Photonics Insights, Journal Name: Photonics Insights Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 2; ISSN 2791-1748
• Publisher: SPIE
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
Material Science