Broadband terahertz generation of metamaterials

US9684221B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignees

• IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION, INC. · US
• Martin Wegener · DE

Inventors

• Liang Luo · Nutley, US
• Jigang Wang · Providence, US
• Thomas Koschny · Ames, US
• Martin Wegener · Tauberbischofsheim, DE
• Costas M. Soukoulis · Ames, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Jan 6, 2016
• Grant date: Jun 20, 2017
• Expiry date: Jan 6, 2036

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G02F2203/13
• WIPO field: Optics
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

Provided are systems and methods to generate single-cycle THz pulses from a few tens of nanometers thin layer of split ring resonators (SRRs) via optical rectification of femtosecond laser pulses. The emitted THz radiation, with a spectrum ranging from about 0.1 to 4 THz, arises exclusively from pumping the magnetic-dipole resonance of SRRs around 200 THz. This resonant enhancement, together with pump polarization dependence and power scaling of the THz emission, underpins the nonlinearity from optically induced circulating currents in SRRs, with a huge effective nonlinear susceptibility of 0.8×10−16 m2/V that far exceeds surface nonlinearities of both thin films and bulk organic/inorganic crystals and sheet nonlinearities of non-centrosymmetric materials such as ZnTe.