We demonstrate that within the model of massless Dirac fermions, graphene has a strong nonlinear optical response in the terahertz regime. It is found that the nonlinear contribution significantly alters both the single frequency and frequency tripled optical response at experimentally relevant field strengths. The optical activity of single layer graphene is significantly enhanced by nonlinear effects, and the frequency tripled response opens the gateway to photonic and optoelectronic device applications.

The authors report on a design of terahertz quantum-cascade lasers based on three-well active modules. Each module consists of two tunnel-coupled wells for the two lasing states and another well for both resonant-phonon depopulation and carrier injection. This design is the simplest so far among the various published working devices. The test device has a lasing frequency of 3.4THz and maximum operating temperature of 142K.

Due to its fast and high resolution characteristics, dual-comb spectroscopy has attracted an increasing amount of interest since its first demonstration. In the terahertz frequency range where abundant absorption lines (finger prints) of molecules are located, multiheterodyne spectroscopy that employs the dual-comb technique shows an advantage in real-time spectral detection over the traditional Fourier transform infrared or time domain spectroscopies. Here, we demonstrate compact terahertz dual-comb spectroscopy based on quantum cascade lasers (QCLs). In our experiment, two free-running QCLs generate approximately 120 GHz wide combs centered at 4.2 THz, with slightly different repetition frequencies. We observe that ∼490 nW terahertz power coupling of one laser into the other suffices for laser-self-detecting the dual-comb spectrum that is registered by a microwave spectrum analyzer. Furthermore, we demonstrate practical terahertz transmission dual-comb spectroscopy with our device, by implementing a short air path at room temperature. Spectra are shown of semiconductor samples and of moist air, the latter allowing rapid monitoring of the relative humidity. Our devices should be readily extendable to perform imaging, microscopy and near-field microscopy in the terahertz regime. arXiv:1904.03330v5 [physics.optics]