Generation of 0.3 mW high-power broadband terahertz pulses from GaP crystal pumped by negatively chirped femtosecond laser pulses

Based on optical rectification in a 3 mm GaP crystal with a femtosecond photonic crystal fiber amplifier as the pump source, a detailed experimental investigation on the influence of the chirp characteristics of the pump pulses on the THz wave generation efficiency is conducted. It is shown that a higher THz generation efficiency can be achieved using negatively chirped pulses rather than de-chirped pulses. In the chosen geometry, using 21 W pump pulses with a negative chirp of −2.3 × 10⁻³ ps², broadband THz radiation with an average power of 0.3 mW is obtained, which is, to the best of our knowledge, the highest value reported so far for high-repetition-rate THz pulses generated by collinear optical rectification. The higher THz generation efficiency by negatively chirped pulses is explained by a pulse-narrowing mechanism in the nonlinear crystal. (letter)