Highly-efficient terahertz radiation generated by surface electrons from laser-foil interactions

Abstract

A novel scheme for generating powerful terahertz (THz) radiation based on laser-solid interactions is proposed. When a $p$-polarized femtosecond laser impinges obliquely on a plane solid target and the target partially blocks the laser energy, surface electrons are extracted out and accelerated by the laser fields, forming a low-divergence electron beam. A half-cycle THz radiation pulse is emitted simultaneously as the beam passes by the edge of the target, due to coherent diffraction radiation. Our particle-in-cell simulations show that the relativistic THz pulse can have an energy of a few tens of millijoule and the conversion efficiency can be over 1$\%$ with existing $\sim$J level femtosecond laser sources.

References in corpus (4)

• Single-cycle THz pulses with amplitudes exceeding 1 MV/cm generated by optical rectification in LiNbO3
• Vacuum laser acceleration of relativistic electrons using plasma mirror injectors
• THz pulses over 50 millijoules generated from relativistic picosecond laser-plasma interactions
• Coherent diffraction radiation of relativistic terahertz pulses from a laser-driven micro-plasma-waveguide

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Powerful laser-produced quasi-half-cycle THz pulses
• Multimillijoule terahertz radiation from laser interactions with microplasma-waveguides
• Diagnosis of Fast Electron Transport by Coherent Transition Radiation