DSTMS-Based Ultrabroadband Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy

DSTMS organic electro-optic crystal is a very promising and efficient THz-wave generation material. It allows for both very high THz electric fields generation, exceeding several GV/m using optical rectification of femtosecond laser pulses, as well as the possibility for extremely broad bandwidth extending well beyond 10 THz [1]. However, the usual laboratory THz systems based on these crystals exploit very bulky and expensive fs laser systems [2], which are not desired for industrial THz imaging and spectroscopy applications [3,4]. Recently, some compact system employing organic crystals were demonstrated [5], however they use a conventional photoconductive antenna as a THz-wave detector. Here we present a compact THz time-domain spectroscopy system based on a relatively low-cost and small-size femtosecond fiber lasers operating at 1560 nm. As the THz generation and detection material, we choose the organic crystal DSTMS (4-N,N-dimethylamino-4‘-N‘-methyl-stilbazolium 2,4,6-trimethylbenzenesulfonate), since it reaches the highest overall efficiency and the flattest spectrum among the presently known state-of-the-art organic crystals (Figure 1).