Dynamics of photo-induced terahertz optical activity in metal chiral gratings

We investigated the dynamics of photo-induced optical activity of metal chiral gratings on an Si substrate for terahertz (THz) waves. We employed a new technique that enables optical-pump and THz-probe measurements via broadband THz spectroscopy at the microsecond time scale using a low-repetition-rate pump and a high-repetition-rate probe. We revealed that the THz optical activity decays as a result of the carrier diffusion effect because this optical activity is because of the presence of three-dimensional chiral structures of photo-carriers in the Si substrate. (c) 2012 Optical Society of America