Spectral phase control of interfering chirped pulses for high-energy narrowband terahertz generation

Spencer W. Jolly (), Nicholas H. Matlis, Frederike Ahr, Vincent Leroux, Timo Eichner, Anne-Laure Calendron, Hideki Ishizuki, Takunori Taira, Franz X. Kärtner and Andreas R. Maier
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Spencer W. Jolly: Center for Free-Electron Laser Science and Department of Physics Universität Hamburg
Nicholas H. Matlis: Center for Free-Electron Laser Science and Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY)
Frederike Ahr: Center for Free-Electron Laser Science and Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY)
Vincent Leroux: Center for Free-Electron Laser Science and Department of Physics Universität Hamburg
Timo Eichner: Center for Free-Electron Laser Science and Department of Physics Universität Hamburg
Anne-Laure Calendron: Center for Free-Electron Laser Science and Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY)
Hideki Ishizuki: Division of Research Innovation and Collaboration, Institute for Molecular Science
Takunori Taira: Division of Research Innovation and Collaboration, Institute for Molecular Science
Franz X. Kärtner: Center for Free-Electron Laser Science and Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY)
Andreas R. Maier: Center for Free-Electron Laser Science and Department of Physics Universität Hamburg

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Highly-efficient optical generation of narrowband terahertz radiation enables unexplored technologies and sciences from compact electron acceleration to charge manipulation in solids. State-of-the-art conversion efficiencies are currently achieved using difference-frequency generation driven by temporal beating of chirped pulses but remain, however, far lower than desired or predicted. Here we show that high-order spectral phase fundamentally limits the efficiency of narrowband difference-frequency generation using chirped-pulse beating and resolve this limitation by introducing a novel technique based on tuning the relative spectral phase of the pulses. For optical terahertz generation, we demonstrate a 13-fold enhancement in conversion efficiency for 1%-bandwidth, 0.361 THz pulses, yielding a record energy of 0.6 mJ and exceeding previous optically-generated energies by over an order of magnitude. Our results prove the feasibility of millijoule-scale applications like terahertz-based electron accelerators and light sources and solve the long-standing problem of temporal irregularities in the pulse trains generated by interfering chirped pulses.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10657-4

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