太赫兹波技术在物理、化学、生命科学等基础研究学科,以及医学成像、安全检查、产品检测、空间通信、**制导等应用学科都具有重要的研究价值和应用前景,而太赫兹辐射源正是太赫兹技术发展的关键部分。概述了基于光学方法产生太赫兹辐射的几种常用方法,着重叙述了利用非线性光学差频技术和基于横向晶格振动光学模受激电磁耦子散射过程的太赫兹参量振荡技术工作原理,以及目前的研究状况,并对这两种方法产生太赫兹波辐射源未来的发展方向进行了展望。

The terahertz (THz) technique has attracted much attention from a variety of applications in fundamental and applied research field, such as physics, chemistry, life sciences, medical imaging, safety inspection, radio astronomy, modern communication, weapon guidance and so on. THz radiation source is a crucial part of THz techniques system. Some typical techniques of the generation of THz radiation based on the optical methods, especially the nonlinear optical process such as difference frequency generation (DFG) and THz parametric generation (TPG) based on stimulated polariton scattering process, are briefly introduced and reviewed. The future of these two kinds of THz generation methods is also forecast.