Optical Generation of Intense Picosecond Electrical Pulses

Abstract

Electrical pulses, 4 A in 10 psec, have been generated by rectification of 1.06-μm pulses in LiTaO3: Cu++. Their amplitude and duration were measured by photographing the birefringence induced by the pulses propagating along an electro-optic transmission line illuminated transversely in a Pockel's cell arrangement. The principal mechanism responsible for the generation is the macroscopic polarization resulting from the difference in dipole moment between the ground and excited states of the absorbing Cu++ impurities.