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Updated: Jun 21, 2026

A Photonic System for Generating Unconditional Polarization-Entangled Photons Based on Multiple Quantum Interference
Published on: September 5, 2019
Coherent terahertz polarization control through manipulation of electron trajectories
Haidan Wen1, Aaron M Lindenberg
1PULSE Institute, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
Abstract:
The dynamics of ionized electrons in a plasma can be controlled by synthetic optical fields composed of the fundamental and the second harmonic of femtosecond optical pulses with an arbitrary phase and polarization. We show here that the plasma-emitted half-cycle THz radiation directly reflects the two-dimensional trajectories of the electrons through polarization sensitive THz emission spectroscopy. As a result, we find that the THz polarization smoothly rotates through 2pi radians as the relative phase between the two pulses is adjusted, providing a new means of coherently controlling the polarization of light at THz frequencies.
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