Info: Zenodo’s user support line is staffed on regular business days between Dec 23 and Jan 5. Response times may be slightly longer than normal.

Published March 6, 2023 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Broadband Spintronic Terahertz Source with Peak Electric Fields Exceeding 1.5 MV/cm

  • 1. Department of Physics, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany and Department of Physical Chemistry, Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, 14195 Berlin, Germany
  • 2. Institute of Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 55099 Mainz, Germany and Singulus Technologies, 63796 Kahl am Main, Germany
  • 3. Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland
  • 4. Max-Born-Institut für nichtlineare Optik und Kurzzeitspektroskopie, 12489 Berlin, Germany
  • 5. Institut für Physik, Universität Greifswald, 17489 Greifswald, Germany
  • 6. Department of Physical Chemistry, Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, 14195 Berlin, Germany
  • 7. Institute of Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 55099 Mainz, Germany

Description

In this work, we improve the performance of an optically pumped spintronic terahertz emitter (STE) by a factor of up to 6 in field amplitude through an optimized photonic and thermal environment. Using high-energy pump pulses (energy 5 mJ, fluence >1 mJ/cm2, wavelength 800 nm, duration 80 fs), we routinely generate terahertz pulses with focal peak electric fields above 1.5 MV/cm, fluences of the order of 1 mJ/cm2, and a spectrum covering the range 0.1–11 THz. Remarkably, the field and fluence values are comparable to those obtained from a state-of-the-art terahertz table-top high-field source based on tilted-pulse-front optical rectification in LiNbO3. The optimized STE inherits all attractive features of the standard STE design, for example, ease of use and the straightforward rotation of the terahertz polarization plane, without the typical 75% power loss found in LiNbO3 setups. It, thus, opens up a promising pathway to nonlinear terahertz spectroscopy. Using low-energy laser pulses (2 nJ, 0.2 mJ/cm2, 800 nm, 10 fs), the emitted terahertz pulse has a focal peak electric field of 100 V/cm, which corresponds to a 2-fold improvement, and covers the spectrum 0.3–30 THz.

Files

PhysRevApplied.19.034018-2.pdf

Files (3.4 MB)

Name Size Download all
md5:45507a3ddc7d1815b5feaafea3138c30
3.4 MB Preview Download

Additional details

Funding

MagnEFi – Magnetism and the effects of Electric Field 860060
European Commission