SYNCHRONOUS PULSE LIGHT GENERATOR AND TERAHERTZ WAVE GENERATOR

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To generate two synchronous pulse light beams with a simple construction and to generate a terahertz wave having excellent monochromaticity and high-speed repeated pulses by using the generated synchronous pulses.

SOLUTION: The pulse light is generated from a pulse oscillation semiconductor laser 114 and is amplified with a pre-optical amplifier 122. The semiconductor laser light pulses and continuous wave light (CW light) from a continuous-wave semiconductor laser 112 having a wavelength different from that of the laser light pulses by▵ωare input to an optical coupler 130. Two light beams having left the optical coupler 130 are input to a nonlinear fiber 140 via a main optical amplifier 124. By four-wave mixing (FWM) resulting from the third-order nonlinearity of the nonlinear fiber 140, FWM light synchronizing with the pulsed light is generated at a wavelength higher than the pulsed light by▵ω. Filters 152, 154 and a pre-optical amplifier 126 are used for the purpose of making pulsed light intensity and FWM light intensity nearly identical to each other and to sufficiently attenuate the continuous wave light. The terahertz pulsed light is output by inputting the two pulsed light beams to a difference-frequency generating nonlinear optical device 160.

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