An integrated description of terahertz generation through optical rectification, charge transfer, and current surge

Ultrafast terahertz pulses can be generated through a number of processes such as optical rectification in an electro-optic crystal, a current surge in a biased photoconductive antenna, or charge transfer in aligned molecules. It will be shown that all these rectification processes can be described by a single analytical formula in the frequency domain. A recipe is given for the quick calculation of terahertz waveforms generated through any rectification process and detected through electro-optic sampling. This theory is compared with experimentally measured terahertz waveforms.