Product Code: ICAL08_M405

Femto-second Pulse Conversion in Electro-optic Dendrimer
Authors:
Anis Rahman, Applied Research & Photonics Inc.; Harrisburg PA USA
Presented at ICALEO 2008

An electro-optic (EO) dendrimer exhibits a higher chi^(2) value that is suitable for femto-second laser pulse conversion for terahertz generation at room temperature. This method of pump-terahertz conversion via EO rectification offers an inherent power scalability that is not limited by emission saturation or by heat dissipation. Generated radiation (T-rays) can be used for time-domain terahertz spectroscopy. A unique advantage of this technique is that molecular events can be monitored on a pico-second time scale (or in terahertz frequency scale) revealing information that are not accessible by FTIR or millimeter waves. This enables a number of applications in molecular recognition, biomedical research, DNA and protein analysis, pharmaceuticals, and other biomedical applications. EO Dendrimer can also generate CW terahertz radiation via difference frequency mixing (DFM). This method is suitable for direct terahertz imaging via a CCD, because, the terahertz radiation generated by an overlapped beam from two pump lasers can illuminate a wider area. An array of such sources can be used for real-time direct terahertz imaging of large objects as opposed to scanning and rasterization. Thus pulse conversion in dendrimer can be an attractive tool for a number of important applications. These applications are further facilitated by high power dendrimer terahertz source devised at ARP. This paper will discuss some of the above techniques with exemplary results.