Single-cycle powerful terahertz pulse generation from vacuum-plasma interface driven by intense laser pulses

Abstract

A new scheme to generate single-cycle strong terahertz (THz) pulses by ultrashort intense laser pulses incident onto a tenuous plasma slab is proposed. Our theory model suggests that, if τL >2π/ωp with τL the laser pulse duration and ωp the plasma frequency, the emission frequency is around τL⁻¹.