Abstract

In this presentation we report new measurements of terahertz optical rectification from electro-optic materials, including semiconductors, inorganic crystals, and organic crystals. This work is an extension of our previous studies on nonlinear properties of electro-optic materials, ^1-4 We used a coherent technique to characterize the amplitude and phase of the signal simultaneously. In semiconductors with a band gap less than the photon energy, such as unbiased CdTe (E_s= 1.5 eV at room temperature), the subpicosecond submillimeter-wave radiation can have contributions both from carrier acceleration in a static field and from optical rectification. In electro-optic materials with band gaps well above the photon energy, the radiation is mainly due to optical rectification.

© 1993 Optical Society of America