Terahertz Spectroscopy of Liquids and Biomolecules

Flat liquid jet as a highly efficient source of terahertz radiation

Polar liquids are strong absorbers of electromagnetic waves in the terahertz range, therefore, historically such liquids have not been considered as good candidates for terahertz sources. However, flowing liquid medium has explicit advantages, such as a higher damage threshold compared to solid-state sources and more efficient ionization process compared to gases. Here we report systematic study of efficient generation of terahertz radiation in flat liquid jets under sub-picosecond single-color optical excitation. We demonstrate how medium parameters such as molecular density, ionization energy and linear absorption contribute to the terahertz emission from the flat liquid jets. Our simulation and experimental measurements reveal that the terahertz energy has quasi-quadratic dependence on the optical excitation pulse energy. Moreover, the optimal pump pulse duration, which depends on the thickness of the jet is theoretically predicted and experimentally confirmed. The obtained optical-to-terahertz energy conversion efficiency is more than 0.05%. It is comparable to the commonly used optical rectification in most of electro-optical crystals and two-color air filamentation. These results, significantly advancing prior research, can be successfully applied to create a new alternative source of terahertz radiation.

Terahertz time-domain and low-frequency Raman spectroscopy of organic materials

With the ongoing proliferation of terahertz time-domain instrumentation from semiconductor physics into applied spectroscopy over the past decade, measurements at terahertz frequencies (1 THz ≡ 10(12) Hz ≡ 33 cm(-1)) have attracted a sustained growing interest, in particular the investigation of hydrogen-bonding interactions in organic materials. More recently, the availability of Raman spectrometers that are readily able to measure in the equivalent spectral region very close to the elastic scattering background has also grown significantly. This development has led to renewed efforts in performing spectroscopy at the interface between dielectric relaxation phenomena and vibrational spectroscopy. In this review, we briefly outline the underlying technology, the physical phenomena governing the light-matter interaction at terahertz frequencies, recent examples of spectroscopic studies, and the current state of the art in assigning spectral features to vibrational modes based on computational techniques.