Terahertz radiation using log-spiral-based low-temperature-grown InGaAs photoconductive antenna pumped by mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser.

We demonstrate a terahertz (THz) radiation using log-spiral-based low-temperature-grown (LTG) InGaAs photoconductive antenna (PCA) modules and a passively mode-locked 1030 nm Yb-doped fiber laser. The passively mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser is easily implemented with nonlinear polarization rotation in the normal dispersion using a 10-nm spectral filter. The laser generates over 250 mW of the average output power with positively chirped 1.58 ps pulses, which are dechirped to 127 fs pulses using a pulse compressor outside the laser cavity. In order to obtain THz radiation, a home-made emitter and receiver constructed from log-spiral-based LTG InGaAs PCA modules were used to generate and detect THz signals, respectively. We successfully achieved absorption lines over 1.5 THz for water vapor in free space. Therefore, we confirm that a mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser has the potential to be used as an optical source to generate THZ waves.