The absorption coefficient and the index of refraction of undoped and Mg-doped stoichiometric and congruent LiNbO3 crystals were determined for polarization parallel to the z axis in the far-infrared (FIR) 30−180-cm−1 frequency range for different Mg-doping levels and temperatures down to 10 K. For stoichiometric LiNbO3, smaller absorption and index of refraction were found, than for congruent samples. At a Mg content near the photorefractive threshold, the FIR absorption coefficient has the lowest value in the stoichiometric crystals, which are most suitable for efficient pulse generation in the terahertz range.

The possibility for up-scaling the energy of sub-ps THz pulses generated by tilted pulse front excitation is demonstrated. Using 150-fs-long 500 muJ optical pump pulses at 800 nm up to 240 nJ THz pulse energy has been achieved. For a 1.2 mm2 pump spot area, the energy conversion efficiency of pump energy to THz pulse energy had a maximum of 5 x 10-4 at 300 muJ pump pulse energy. The corresponding photon conversion efficiency amounts to 10 %. For comparison, the maximum attainable THz pulse energy was limited to 3.1 nJ if a line focusing excitation geometry was utilized. This limit was reached at 32 muJ pump energy. For the latter configuration the THz energy dropped for larger pump energies. The tilted pulse front excitation allows further up-scaling of the THz pulse energy by using a larger pump spot size and still stronger pump pulses.

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We investigate the dependence of carrier lifetimes in radiation-damaged, GaAs on proton implantation dose by means of time-resolved reflectivity and photoconductivity experiments with subpicosecond resolution. The carrier lifetimes decrease with increasing implantation dose at low implantation levels whereas beyond the ‘‘amorphization dose’’ a saturation at 0.5 ps can be observed due to a saturation of the defect density.

We demonstrate the use of a transient polarization grating induced by two femtosecond laser pulses propagating in a LiNbO3 crystal for the generation of frequency tunable, narrow-band, picosecond THz pulses. Employing pump pulses with 150 fs duration and 2 J energy, the generated THz pulse has an energy up to 1.8 pJ, a pulse duration of 3 - 5 ps and a bandwidth of 0.1 THz. The central frequency can be tuned in the range from 0.5 to 3 THz. The generation efficiency of the transient grating method in comparison to other techniques is discussed. The possibility of shaping the temporal waveform of the THz pulses by simply shaping the spatial intensity distribution of the pump pulses is demonstrated.