Terahertz polarization pulse shaping with arbitrary field control

Polarization shaping of terahertz pulses enables us to manipulate the temporal evolution of the amplitude and direction of electric-field vectors in a prescribed manner. Such arbitrary control of terahertz waves has great potential in expanding the scope of terahertz spectroscopy, the manipulation of terahertz nonlinear phenomena and coherent control. This is analogous to the use of pulse-shaping techniques for optical frequencies that involve light's polarization states as a controllable degree of freedom. Here, we propose and demonstrate a method for generating a prescribed terahertz polarization-shaped waveform by the optical rectification of a laser pulse whose instantaneous polarization state and intensity are controlled by an optical pulse shaper. We have developed a deterministic procedure to derive input parameters for the pulse shaper that are adequate to generate the desired terahertz polarization-shaped waveform, with the benefit of simple polarization selection rules for the rectification process of light waves propagating along the threefold axis of a nonlinear optical crystal.