Multibranch pulse synthesis and electro-optic detection of subcycle multi-terahertz electric fields

Abstract

We present a robust, compact pulse synthesis scheme generating intense phase-locked subcycle multi-terahertz waveforms. The ultrabroadband laser fundamental is split into two parallel branches driving optical rectification in crystals of GaSe and LiGaS2, each operated at the group velocity matching point. The coherent combination of the resulting pulses yields a continuous multi-terahertz spectrum covering 1.5 optical octaves. The corresponding 0.8-cycle electric field waveform is directly mapped out by electro-optic sampling, revealing peak fields of 15 kV/cm at a repetition rate of 0.4 MHz. The multiplexable and power scalable scheme opens the door to strong-field custom-tailored waveforms driving nonlinear optics and light wave electronics.