%ABenea-Chelmus, Ileana-Cristina%ASalamin, Yannick%ASettembrini, Francesca%AFedoryshyn, Yuriy%AHeni, Wolfgang%AElder, Delwin%ADalton, Larry%ALeuthold, Juerg%AFaist, Jérôme%BJournal Name: Optica; Journal Volume: 7; Journal Issue: 5; Related Information: CHORUS Timestamp: 2022-10-06 15:50:28 %D2020%IOptical Society of America %JJournal Name: Optica; Journal Volume: 7; Journal Issue: 5; Related Information: CHORUS Timestamp: 2022-10-06 15:50:28 %K %MOSTI ID: 10149249 %PMedium: X %TElectro-optic interface for ultrasensitive intracavity electric field measurements at microwave and terahertz frequencies %X
Electro-optic quantum coherent interfaces map the amplitude and phase of a quantum signal directly to the phase or intensity of a probe beam. At terahertz frequencies, a fundamental challenge is not only to sense such weak signals (due to a weak coupling with a probe in the near-infrared) but also to resolve them in the time domain. Cavity confinement of both light fields can increase the interaction and achieve strong coupling. Using this approach, current realizations are limited to low microwave frequencies. Alternatively, in bulk crystals, electro-optic sampling was shown to reach quantum-level sensitivity of terahertz waves. Yet, the coupling strength was extremely weak. Here, we propose an on-chip architecture that concomitantly provides subcycle temporal resolution and an extreme sensitivity to sense terahertz intracavity fields below 20 V/m. We use guided femtosecond pulses in the near-infrared and a confinement of the terahertz wave to a volume of