Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Overcoming technical performance limitations in the detection and characterization of terahertz (THz) radiation will enable ground-breaking scientific advances from the study of fast and non-reproducible phenomena to enabling THz quantum applications that require single-photon sensitivity. Electro-optic sampling techniques intrinsically rely on the acquisition of multiple data points to reconstruct the full THz waveform, which leads to long data acquisition times, and prevents the detection of single photons. We have developed two distinct and highly sensitive detection techniques for pulsed THz radiation: i) a single-pulse measurement which employs chirped-pulse spectral encoding and a dispersive Fourier transform method for time-resolved THz spectroscopy at a demonstrated rate of 50 kHz; and ii) a single-THz-photon detection technique based on parametric frequency conversion and single-photon counting technology capable of detecting THz pulses at the zeptojoule level. These extreme detection schemes will lay the foundation for THz applications in the single-pulse and single-photon regimes.
Gamouras et al. (Tue,) studied this question.