Propagation of single-cycle terahertz pulses in random media.

We describe what are to our knowledge the first measurements of the propagation of coherent, single-cycle pulses of terahertz radiation in a scattering medium. By measuring the transmission as a function of the length L of the medium, we extract the scattering mean free path l(s)(omega) over a broad bandwidth. We observe variations in l(s) ranging over nearly 2 orders of magnitude and covering the entire thin sample regime from L/l(s)<<1 to L/l(s)~10 . We also observe scattering-induced dispersive effects, which can be attributed to the additional path traveled by photons scattered at small angles.