Terahertz-wave generation in quasi-phase-matched GaAs

Abstract

The authors demonstrate an efficient room temperature source of terahertz radiation using femtosecond laser pulses as a pump and GaAs structures with periodically inverted crystalline orientation, such as diffusion-bonded stacked GaAs and epitaxially grown orientation-patterned GaAs, as a nonlinear optical medium. By changing the GaAs orientation-reversal period (504–1277μm), or the pump wavelength (2–4.4μm), we were able to generate narrow-bandwidth (∼100GHz) terahertz wave packets, tunable between 0.9 and 3THz, with the optical-to-terahertz photon conversion efficiency of 3.3%.