Tilted-Pulse-Front Terahertz Generation in a Plane-Parallel LiNbO 3 Plate

A modified scheme of tilted-pulse-front terahertz generation in LiNbO 3 has been proposed, theoretically studied, and experimentally tested. In this scheme, a plane-parallel LiNbO 3 plate is sandwiched between two coupling dielectric prisms, in contrast to the conventional tilted-pulse-front scheme with a prism-shaped LiNbO 3 crystal. This allows improving the lateral uniformity of the generated terahertz beam. In a proof-of-principle experiment, the optical-to-terahertz conversion efficiency of the new scheme as high as 0.03% has been demonstrated.