Long-range parametric amplification of THz wave with absorption loss exceeding parametric gain.

Optical parametric mixing is a popular scheme to generate an idler wave at THz frequencies, although the THz wave is often absorbing in the nonlinear optical material. It is widely suggested that the useful material length for co-directional parametric mixing with strong THz-wave absorption is comparable to the THz-wave absorption length in the material. Here we show that, even in the limit of the absorption loss exceeding parametric gain, the THz idler wave can grows monotonically from optical parametric amplification over a much longer distance in a nonlinear optical material until pump depletion. The coherent production of the non-absorbing signal wave can assist the growth of the highly absorbing idler wave. We also show that, for the case of an equal input pump and signal in difference frequency generation, the quick saturation of the THz idler wave predicted from a much simplified and yet popular plane-wave model fails when fast diffraction of the THz wave from the co-propagating optical mixing waves is considered.

Forward and backward THz-wave difference frequency generations from a rectangular nonlinear waveguide.

We report forward and backward THz-wave difference frequency generations at 197 and 469 µm from a PPLN rectangular crystal rod with an aperture of 0.5 (height in z) × 0.6 (width in y) mm(2) and a length of 25 mm in x. The crystal rod appears as a waveguide for the THz waves but as a bulk material for the optical mixing waves near 1.54 µm. We measured enhancement factors of 1.6 and 1.8 for the forward and backward THz-wave output powers, respectively, from the rectangular waveguide in comparison with those from a PPLN slab waveguide of the same length, thickness, and domain period under the same pump and signal intensity of 100 MW/cm(2).