Project description
Tabletop strong-field THz sources in physical chemistry
Ultrafast laser-driven sources of few-cycle THz radiation have become widespread laboratory tools for spectroscopy. Recent advances in the generation of such pulses with strong electric field strengths have allowed nonlinear THz spectroscopy to open new fields in research. However, there is a persistent lack of tabletop THz sources combining high field strength and high repetition rate. The EU-funded TerAqua project intends to achieve tabletop strong-field THz sources with watt-level average power by novel intracavity techniques. TerAqua will apply this method in physical chemistry to elucidate the role of water as the ‘solvent of life.’
Objective
Ultrafast laser driven sources of few-cycle THz pulses have progressed from being specialized systems to widespread laboratory tools. This has enabled THz time-domain spectroscopy to emerge as a powerful technique for time-resolved studies of the dynamics of many fundamental constituents of matter. Recent progress in the generation of few-cycle THz pulses with electric field strengths exceeding several MV/cm, has allowed nonlinear THz spectroscopy to open new exciting fields of research.
However, many fields suffer from a persistent lack of table-top THz sources combining high field strength and high repetition rate (i.e. high average power). So far, these parameters can only be achieved by costly and restrictive accelerator facilities. In most cases, scientists will either abandon research lines where high pulse energy is required or operate at low repetition rate (typically <1 kHz). This imposes severe limits on the explored parameter space in many measurements, for which minuscule average powers result in very long integration time and low signal-to-noise ratio.
My objective is to fill this gap by achieving table-top strong-field THz sources with watt-level average power. The key feature is to leverage existing THz generation techniques to higher efficiency by driving them inside the resonator of a high-power ultrafast thin-disk oscillator, operated in the mid-infrared (2 µm) spectral region.
This source will have impact in various fields of physics, physical chemistry, engineering, biology and medicine. I envision to apply this source in physical chemistry, to gain understanding of the role of water as “the solvent of life”. THz spectroscopy is perfectly suited to study aqueous samples, however, so far, most THz studies in liquid phase have been performed in the linear domain, and in a restricted parameter space due to the inadequacy of the sources. Our source will enable us to expand these studies into the nonlinear domain, which was previously impossible.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences physical sciences optics laser physics
- natural sciences physical sciences optics spectroscopy
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Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) ERC-2018-STG
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44801 Bochum
Germany
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