Efficient infrared-terahertz pulse conversion in waveguide semiconductor structures

It is shown that the use of a waveguide semiconductor structure provides a means for substantially increasing the degree of conversion of a high-power infrared pulse to a terahertz pulse by optical rectification of the infrared pulse in a medium with a quadratic nonlinearity of the permittivity. Using the example of the C/GaAs/C waveguide heterostructure, the optimal parameters of both the structure as such and the infrared pulse are determined and the duration and shape of the output terahertz pulse are calculated.