The study of gas species on THz generation from laser-induced air plasma

Intense Terahertz waves generated from air-induced plasma and serving as broadband THz source provide a promising broadband source for innovative technology. Terahertz generation in selected gases has attracted more and more researchers’ interests in recent years. In this research, the THz emission from different atoms is described, such as nitrogen, argon and helium in Michelson. The THz radiation is detected by a Golay Cell equipped with a 6-mm-diameter diamond-inputting window. It can be seen in the first time that when the pump power lies at a stable level, the THz generation created by the femtosecond laser focusing on the nitrogen is higher than which focusing on the helium, and lower than that produced in the argon gas environment. We believe that the THz intensity is Ar > N > Ne because of its atomic mass, which is Ar > N > Ne as well. It is clear that the Gas molecular decides the release of free electrons ionized from ultra short femtosecond laser through the electronic dynamic analysis. The higher the gas mass is, the stronger the terahertz emission will be. We further explore the THz emission at the different laser power levels, and the experimental results can be commendably quadratic fitted. It can be inferred that THz emission under different gas medium environment still complies with the law of four-wave mixing (FWM) process and has nothing to do with the gas environment: the radiation energy is proportional to the quadratic of incident laser power.