Phase Diversity Electro-optic Sampling: A new approach to single-shot terahertz waveform recording

Abstract

THz spectroscopy is an emerging tool for detection of microorganisms and harmful compounds in the food industry, the study of proteins in biomedicine and the development of electron-beam X-ray sources for molecular imaging and lithography. Recording of THz electric field evolution in single-shot is crucially needed in terahertz spectroscopy of irreversible processes in such applications as well as for data communication in the THz portion of the spectrum where there is an abundance of untapped bandwidth. However, achieving sub-picosecond resolution over a long time window has been an open problem for electro-optic sampling -- the standard technique for recording terahertz waveforms. We introduce a new conceptual framework for this open problem that is inspired by time-stretch theory. The novel framework unveils a solution to this 20 year-old problem leading to a dramatic enhancement of the achievable temporal resolution. We validate this new technology in two applications. First, we present single shot recordings of long free-propagating terahertz transients with record time resolution. Second, we present recordings of ultra-short relativistic electron bunches at the European X-ray Free Electron Laser. These results show that electric signals may be now recorded with terahertz bandwidth over arbitrarily long windows, thus enabling the realization of "single-shot terahertz oscilloscopes" and single-shot time-domain spectroscopy systems with an arbitrary time-bandwidth product.

References in corpus (8)

• Spectral Phase Control of Interfering Chirped Pulses for High-Energy Narrowband Terahertz Generation
• Retrieval of phase relation and emission profile of quantum cascade laser frequency combs
• Observing microscopic structures of a relativistic object using a time -stretch strategy
• Direct observation of spatio-temporal dynamics of short electron bunches in storage rings
• High sensitivity photonic time-stretch electro-optic sampling of terahertz pulses
• Multi-beam-energy operation for the continuous-wave x-ray free electron laser
• Compact single-shot electro-optic detection system for THz pulses with femtosecond time resolution at MHz repetition rates
• The time resolved measurement of ultrashort THz-band electric fields without an ultrashort probe

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Single-pulse time-resolved terahertz spectroscopy of sub-millisecond time dynamics
• Advanced Data Processing of THz-Time Domain Spectroscopy Data with Sinusoidally Moving Delay Lines
• Performance analysis of table-top single-pulse terahertz detection up to 1.1 MHz
• Laser-driven few-cycle Terahertz sources with high average power
• Electro-optic sampling based characterization of broad-band high efficiency THz-FEL
• Cost-effective time-stretch terahertz recorders using 1550 nm probes