Figure 2. A Proposed Terahertz Laser would include a plastic hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber filled with a terahertz-active gas. The fiber would be part of a terahertz resonator. The terahertz-active gas would be optically pumped by a mid-infrared laser beam.

Some of the risky and challenging aspects of the proposed development are the following:

• It is critical to design hollow-core photonic-crystal fibers to guide both mid-infrared pump and terahertz beams with losses low enough for efficient lasing. While guiding at single wavelengths has been demonstrated, simultaneous guiding at two wavelengths has not yet been realized.
• Filling the voids in hollow-core photonic- crystal fibers with suitable terahertz- active gases is a challenging task.
• Generation of terahertz beams in gasfilled photonic-crystal fibers has not been demonstrated yet.
• Engineering of coupling and reflective structures that provide for efficient and tailorable manipulation of two beams that differ greatly in wavelength is another challenging task.

This work was done by Antonije Radojevic of the C. S. Draper Laboratory, Inc. for the Naval Research Laboratory.

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