The Sabina terahertz/infrared beamline at SPARC-Lab facility

The SABINA project was developed by INFN at the SPARC_LAB research facility with the aim of creating an electromagnetic radiation source in the important Terahertz (THz)/MIR spectral region. This project is part of a broader framework that for decades has aimed to innovate the techniques for generating, manipulating and detecting THz radiation, the importance and application of which have been severely limited in recent decades by the lack of technologies and techniques that are already widely used and refined in other spectral ranges. Among the frontiers of research in this field, it is important to include the realisation of high-intensity, ps-long, THz and Infrared (IR) sources that are going to become a fundamental spectroscopy tool for probing and control low-energy quantum systems ranging from graphene and Topological Insulators to novel superconductors and magneto/electric excitations. In this framework, the SABINA project has the practical goal of realising a FEL beamline operating as a user facility that produces quasi-monochromatic radiation over a wide spectral range from 3 THz up to 30 THz, with time duration pulses on the order of ps and energies in the mJ range. The core of the beamline consists of a series of three undulators based on the APPLE-X design that allows the emission of high intensity synchrotron radiation and the manipulation of high electric fields ( ~10 MV/cm) by controlling their polarizations (linear, circular and elliptical). The beamline also includes the transport of the produced radiation to an 'open to user' laboratory through a total optical path of approximately 25 m. This laboratory will be equipped with the appropriate optical set-up necessary to perform a wide variety of scientific experiments concerning non-linear and time-resolved optical spectroscopy. Indeed, the laboratory will be equipped and synchronised with a fs laser to allow pump-probe experiments with different combinations of THz, IR and Vis radiation, and will be supplied with a magnetic cryostat to perform temperature measurements with magnetic fields up to 5T.