The features of terahertz radiation generated upon oblique incidence of a femtosecond laser pulse on a metal surface are investigated theoretically. We propose a Cherenkov-type generation mechanism associated with excitation of low-frequency surface currents by a p-polarized optical field. The nonlinear surface currents and corresponding electrodynamic characteristics of low-frequency radiation are calculated analytically and by numerical simulation using the hydrodynamic model. The features of Cherenkov generation of terahertz radiation are analyzed, and techniques are proposed for increasing efficiency.

We report on the first experimental observation of terahertz (THz) wave generation from bismuth mono- and polycrystalline samples irradiated by femtosecond laser pulses. Dependencies of the THz signal on the crystal orientation, optical pulse energy, incidence angle, and polarization are presented and discussed together with features of the sample surfaces. The optical-to-THz conversion efficiency was up to two orders of magnitude higher than for metal at a moderate fluence of $\sim 1\mathrm{mJ}/{\mathrm{cm}}^2$. We also found nonlinear effects not previously observed using other metal and semiconductor materials: (a) asymmetry of THz response with respect to a half-turn of a sample around its normal, (b) THz polarization control by orientation of the sample surface, and (c) strong enhancement of optical-to-THz conversion after structuring of a sample with optically large-scale parallel strips pattern.

We present a generalization of standard Yee approach for Cauchy problem in electrodynamic simulations on unstructured triangulated mesh. In the paper the whole flow from mesh creation to actual simulation is presented. The proposed computation flow is parallel ready and can be implemented for distributed systems (computation servers, GPU-s, etc.). We studied the influence of non-regular triangulation on stability and dispersion properties of numerical solution.