Abstract

There is a strong need for high energy ultrashort THz pulses. While optical rectification provides an accessible means to generate THz pulses, until recently, only pulses up to the 10 nJ energy level was demonstrated. This method needs velocity matching between optical and THz fields. For high-dielectric materials (e.g. LiNbO₃), which offer attractive electro-optic coefficients and other parameters, velocity matching cannot be achieved collinearly. For such a situation, tilting of the pump pulse front has been proposed [1], Very recently, THz pulses with 240 nJ of energy were generated with this method [2], In this contribution we present results on significant further up-scaling the energy.

© 2007 IEEE