0.1-30 THz) have experienced an unprecedentedly rapid progress with potential in fundamental sciences and real applications, especially under the fast development of ultrafast laser technology. [1] Recently, terahertz technologies have also been successfully employed in laboratories as powerful tools for triggering other novel related researches and applications, such as electron accelerations, [2] strong-field nonlinear phononics, [3] nonlinear terahertz photonics, [4] nonionization imaging, [5] and so on. Significantly large potential of terahertz technology could be envisaged in its real applications such as nondestructive spectroscopy [6] and ionization-free imaging, highly sensitive sensing, [7] short-range wireless communication at terahertz bit rates, [8,9] and so on. However, hindering the development of this fascinating technology from real applications lies in the lack of highly efficient terahertz sources, versatile functional devices, and sensitive detectors, as well as compact and robust systems. Among them, terahertz sources are significantly important, especially for those integrated with flexible manipulation of terahertz polarization states. As well demonstrated, when carrying with optical spin and angular momentum, [10] it enables another freedom of utilizing terahertz waves and boosts Flexible manipulation of terahertz wave polarizations during the generation process is very important for terahertz applications, especially for the next-generation on-chip functional terahertz sources. However, current terahertz emitters cannot satisfy such demand, hence calling for new mechanisms and conceptually new terahertz sources. Here an efficient and broadband terahertz source with magnetic-field-controlled flexible switching for the polarizations between linear and elliptical states in ferromagnetic heterostructures driven by femtosecond laser pulses is demonstrated. More importantly, the chirality, azimuthal angle, and ellipticity of the generated elliptical terahertz wave can be precisely manipulated by harnessing external magnetic fields via effectively tailoring the photoinduced spin currents. Such an ultrafast photomagnetic interaction-based, magnetic-field-controlled, and broadband tunable solid-state terahertz source integrated with polarization tunability functions not only provides the capability to reveal physical mechanisms of femtosecond spin dynamics, but also demonstrates the feasibility to realize novel on-chip terahertz functional devices, boosting the potential applications for controlling elementary molecular rotations, phonon vibrations, spin precessions, high-speed communications, and accelerating the development of ultrafast terahertz optospintronics.
Terahertz RadiationThe ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.