Abstract
Before discussing the nature of THz waves and their applications, it is suitable to introduce how THz waves are generated and detected. As mentioned in Chapter 1, this book will focus on pulsed THz technologies. A typical pulsed THz wave generation and detection system is a pump and probe setup as presented in Fig. 2.1. The most common way that pulsed systems work is by splitting a beam from a femtosecond (fs) laser into two beams: the probe and the pump beams. The pump beam is used to generate the THz pulse, while the probe beam is used to sample and obtain the pulse profile. Detecting of THz field is performed by modulating the probe pulse with the THz field or by accelerating free carriers induced by the probe pulse with the THz field. A mechanical delay line is used to change the time delay between THz pulse and the probe pulse. The THz waveform can be obtained by scanning this time delay. To increase the sensitivity, the pump beam is modulated by an optical chopper, and the THz-induced modulation on the probe beam is extracted by a lock-in amplifier. This pulse information acquired in the time domain is transformed to the frequency domain with a Fourier transform from which spectral information can be obtained.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
J. T. Darrow, X.-C. Zhang, D. H. Auston, and J. D. Morse, “Saturation properties of large-aperture photoconducting antennas,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 28, 1607 (1992).
D. S. Kim, and D. S. Citrin, “Coulomb and radiation screening in photoconductive terahertz sources,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 88, 161117–161119 (2006).
S. E. Ralph, and D. Grischkowsky, “Trap-enhanced electric field in semi-insulators: the role of electrical and optical carrier injection,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 59, 1972 (1991).
Y. H. Chen, Z. Yang, Z. G. Wang, and R. G. Li, “Temperature dependence of the Fermi level in low-temperature-grown GaAs,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 72, 1866 (1998).
T. Dekorsy, T. Pfeifer, W. Kutt, and H. Kurz, “Subpicosecond carrier transport in GaAs surface-space-charge fields,” Phys. Rev. B 47, 3842 (1993).
K. Liu, J. Xu, T. Yuan and X. “C. Zhang, “Terhertz radiation from InAs induced by carrier diffusion and drift,” Phys. Rev. B. 73, 1607 (1992).
X. Xie, J. Xu and X. “C. “Terahertz wave generation and detecion from a CdTe crystal charactersised by different excitation wavelengths” Opt. Lett.. 31, 978 (2006).
Q. Chen, M. Tani, Z. Jiang, and X.-C. Zhang, “Electro-optic transceivers for terahertz-wave applications,” J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 18, 823 (2001).
Q. Wu, and X.-C. Zhang, “Design and characterization of traveling-wave electrooptic terahertz sensors,” IEEE J. Select. Top. Quantum. Electron. 2, 693 (1996).
Q. Wu and X.-C. Zhang, “7 terahertz broadband GaP electro-optic sensor,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 70, 1784 (1997).
A. Leitenstorfer, S. Hunsche, J. Shah, M. C. Nuss, and W. H. Knox “Detectors and sources for ultrabroadband electro-optic sampling: Experiment and theory,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 74, 1516 (1999).
J. Hebling, K.-L. Yeh, M. C. Hoffmann, B. Bartal, and K. A. Nelson, “Generation of high-power terahertz pulses by tilted-pulse-front excitation and their application possibilities,” J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 25, B6 (2008).
Y.-S. Lee, T. Meade, V. Perlin, H. Winful, T. B. Norris, and A. Galvanauskas, “Generation of narrow-band terahertz radiation via optical rectification of femtosecond pulses in periodically poled lithium niobate,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 76, 2505–2507 (2000).
G. Imeshev, M. E. Fermann, K. L. Vodopyanov, M. M. Fejer, X. Yu, J. S. Harris, D. Bliss, and C. Lynch, “High-power source of THz radiation based on orientation-patterned GaAs pumped by a fiber laser,” Opt. Express 14, 4439 (2006).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zhang, XC., Xu, J. (2010). Generation and Detection of THz Waves. In: Introduction to THz Wave Photonics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0978-7_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0978-7_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-0977-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-0978-7
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)