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Frontiers in Optics

Coherent Generation of Short Terahertz Pulses in Doped Optical Crystals

Elena A. Kuznetsova, Yuri V. Rostovtsev, Nikolai G. Kalugin, Roman L. Kolesov, Olga A. Kocharovskaya, Marlan O. Scully

Published Jan 1, 2006• 0 citations

Abstract

Terahertz radiation has unique potential for applications to material diagnostics including semiconductors, chemical compounds, biomolecules and biotissues, imaging for medical and security applications, remote atmospheric sensing and monitoring, astronomy, etc. The search for efficient, high-power, inexpensive, portable and room temperature suitable methods of generation of THz radiation is one of the main topics in modern optoelectronics and photonics. Specifically, coherent solid-state compact efficient THz sources are desirable. Recently we suggested a new approach to the problem of generation of short coherent THz pulses in molecular gases taking advantage of the dramatic enhancement of a nonlinear response of a medium via quantum coherence. Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) technique was proposed for preparation of maximal molecular coherence by two optical pump fields, which is further used to efficiently scatter off an IR probe beam and generate a Stokes THz field in a double Λ scheme. The central idea of the crystal-based technique is to generate THz radiation by resonantly inducing coherence at the corresponding transition by coherent optical fields. Electronic levels of the THz transition are coupled by a pair of optical fields to a common ground state forming a V scheme of energy levels. Coherence induced by the optical fields at the THz transition gives rise to polarization provided that the corresponding dipole moment is not zero, which will radiate out a THz pulse. We show that coherently driven molecular (such as methanol, H2F2, CH3Cl, etc.) and solid-state (ruby, alexandrite) media can potentially produce strong, controllable, short pulses of THz radiation. The pulses have energies ranging from hundreds pJ to J and time durations from several fs to ns at room temperature.

DOI: 10.1364/fio.2006.jsua69

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We have shown that a coherently driven solid state medium can potentially produce strong controllable short pulses of THz radiation. The high efficiency of the technique is based on excitation of maximal THz coherence by applying resonant optical pulses to the medium. The excited coherence in the medium is connected to macroscopic polarization coupled to THz radiation. We have performed detailed simulations by solving the coupled density matrix and Maxwell equations. By using a simple V-type energy scheme for ruby, we have demonstrated that the energy of generated THz pulses ranges from hundreds of pico-Joules to nano-Joules at room temperature and micro-Joules at liquid helium temperature, with pulse durations from picoseconds to tens of nanoseconds. We have also suggested a coherent ruby source that lases on two optical wavelengths and simultaneously generates THz radiation. We discussed also possibilities of extension of the technique to different solid-state materials.

We show that coherently driven atomic or molecular media potentially yield strong controllable short pulses of THz radiation. The method is based on excitation of maximal quantum coherence in a gas medium by optical pulses and coherent scattering of infra-red radiation to produce pulses of THz radiation. The pulses have the energies range from several nJ to

μ

J and time durations from several fs to ns at room temperature.

We have studied the formation of ultracold RbSr molecules with laser pulses. After discussing the advantages of the Mott insulator phase for the control with pulses, we present two classes of strategies. The first class involves two electronic states. Two extensions of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) for multilevel transitions are used: alternating STIRAP (A-STIRAP) and straddle STIRAP (S-STIRAP). Both transfer dynamics are modeled and compared. The second class of strategies involves only the electronic ground state and uses infrared (IR) and terahertz (THz) pulses. The molecular bond is first created by the application of a THz chirped pulse or $\ensuremath{\pi}$-pulse. Subsequently, the molecules are transferred to their rovibrational ground level using IR pulses. For this last step, different optimized pulse sequences that were obtained through optimal control techniques have been studied. The relative merits of these strategies in terms of efficiency and robustness are discussed with respect to the experimental feasibility based on present laser technologies.

The exquisite control of diluted atomic vapors that can be achieved using electromagnetic (em) fields triggered the overwhelming development of researches on ultracold (T<<1millikelvin) quantum gases through laser cooling and trapping, opening ways to amazing applications in quantum technologies. For a composite system like a molecule under such ultracold conditions, the additional control of the internal degrees of freedom has also been recently demonstrated [1] with cw visible, microwave, and radio radiation frequencies for electronic, rotational, and hyperfine transitions, respectively. Vibrational transitions could be addressed with THz transitions, as an attractive path for controlling the interatomic interactions and creating ultracold gases of a wide class of diatomic molecules in their absolute ground state. More specifically, THz radiation can induce a coupling between the bound level of a pair of trapped ultracold ground-state atoms and a loosely-bound vibrational level of the related molecular electronic ground state. This coupling, generated by the intrinsic permanent electric dipole moment of a heteronuclear atomic pair (RbSr in the present work), is related to a specific spectroscopic feature of the atomic pair dressed by the THz field, the Laser Assisted Self-Induced Feshbach Resonance (LASIFR) [2] . In analogy with magnetic Feshbach resonance, the scattering length can be controlled by tuning the THz radiation frequency around a LASIFR (see Fig (a)).

Abstract The possibility of generating extremely short pulses of terahertz (THz) radiation due to superradiance—collective spontaneous emission of a thin layer of a three-level resonant medium excited by a pair of attosecond (or femtosecond) pulses—is studied theoretically. The source of a terahertz pulse is a pulse of stopped nonlinear polarization of the medium, which arises in the interval between its excitation and deexcitation. The case of a three-level medium with equidistant energy levels (as in a quantum harmonic oscillator) the transition frequency of which lies in the THz range is considered. The influence of the populations of the excited levels of the medium on the shape of a terahertz superradiance pulse is discussed.