Superradiant terahertz sources and their applications in accelerator diagnostics and ultra-fast science

The terahertz (THz) frequency range lies between the frequency range of radio and infrared. The exact limits are not well defined and depend on the scientific community. The most recent ''2017 Terahertz Science and Technology Roadmap'' sets the THz frequency range to between 0.1 and 30 THz. The development of suitable detectors, detection techniques, and sources for this frequency range has seen tremendous progress over the past decade. The arrival of commercial femtosecond (fs) laser systems has enabled new, background-free THz time domain spectroscopy, and both laser-driven and accelerator-driven THz sources are currently producing pulse energies in the μJ, and even mJ, range. This thesis describes the characterization of a new class of accelerator-based light sources, which open up opportunities to provide a unique combination of high pulse energies and high repetition rates. The foreseen applications of these types of sources, coined ''superradiant THz sources'', lie in the area of time-resolved (nonlinear) spectroscopy. One of the first results of this thesis is the observation that the THz pulses from the prototype facility TELBE exhibit large pulse-to-pulse fluctuations in arrivaltime and intensity. These types of instabilities render the intended applications of TELBE for real-world nonlinear THz spectroscopy experiments impossible. As part of this thesis a pulse resolved data acquisition and analysis scheme has therefore been devised which enables the correction of these instabilities and now allows performance of time-resolved THz spectroscopy measurements with sub-30 femtosecond (fs) (FHWM) time resolution with excellent dynamic range up to 106. The thesis is organized as follows: the first chapter introduces the fundamental principles and techniques utilized in this work. The second chapter presents the results, starting with the diagnostic developments, followed by a thorough characterization of the THz source properties and ending with the presentation of two benchmark THz-pump laser-probe experiments. After summarizing the results, foreseeable future development and upgrades, e.g. towards sub-1-fs resolution, are discussed. It should be noted that the techniques developed within the framework of this thesis have been in continuous use since July 2016 in friendly user experiments at the TELBE facility.