Highly scalable multicycle THz production with a homemade periodically poled macrocrystal

• Published in: Communications physics 2020-08, Vol.3 (1), Article 150
• Main Authors: Lemery, François, Vinatier, Thomas, Mayet, Frank, Aßmann, Ralph, Baynard, Elsa, Demailly, Julien, Dorda, Ulrich, Lucas, Bruno, Pandey, Alok-Kumar, Pittman, Moana
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/624/400/385; 639/766/400/561; Apertures; Crystals; Energy conversion efficiency; High power lasers; Laser applications; Lithium niobates; Medicine; Particle acceleration; Particle accelerators; Phase matching; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Solid state physics
• ISSN: 2399-3650; 2399-3650
• DOI: 10.1038/s42005-020-00421-2

The THz regime is widely appealing across many disciplines including solid-state physics, life sciences, and increasingly in particle acceleration. Multicycle THz pulses are typically formed via optical rectification in periodically poled crystals. However the manufacturing procedures of these crystals limit their apertures to below  ~1 cm, which from damage limitations of the crystal, limits the total pump power which can be employed, and ultimately, the total THz power which can be produced. Here we report on the simple in-house fabrication of a periodically poled crystal using  ~300 μm thick wafers. Each wafer is consecutively rotated by 180 ∘ to support quasi-phase matching. We validate the concept with a Joule-class laser system operating at 10 Hz and measure up to 1.3 mJ of energy at 160 GHz, corresponding to an average peak power of approximately 35 MW and a conversion efficiency of 0.14%. In addition, a redshifting of the pump spectrum of  ~50 nm is measured. Our results indicate that high-power THz radiation can be produced with existing and future high-power lasers in a scalable way, setting a course toward multi-gigawatt multicycle THz pulses. Multicycle pulsed Terahertz radiation has appealing applications in medicine, applications in medicine, biology, material science, and could power emerging laser-based table-top accelerators and diagnostics. However a simple way to generate such pulses with high energy is not straightforward. The authors report on generation of high-peak-intensity THz pulses using a Lithium-Niobate wafer-chain and achieving a 35 megawatt in peak intensity.