Single-cycle powerful megawatt to gigawatt terahertz pulse radiated from a wavelength-scale plasma oscillator.
We propose a scheme to generate single-cycle powerful terahertz (THz) pulses by ultrashort intense laser pulses obliquely incident on an underdense plasma slab of a few THz wavelengths in thickness. THz waves are radiated from a transient net current driven by the laser ponderomotive force in the plasma slab. Analysis and particle-in-cell simulations show that such a THz source is capable of providing power of megawatts to gigawatts, field strength of MV/cm-GV/cm, and broad tunability range, which is potentially useful for nonlinear and high-field THz science and applications.
Beijing National Laboratory of Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100080, China and Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, D-85748 Garching, Germany. hui-chun.wu@mpq.mpg.de
Hui-Chun
HC
Wu
Zheng-Ming
ZM
Sheng
Jie
J
Zhang