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Anisotropy is ubiquitous in solids and enhanced in low-dimensional materials. In response to an electromagnetic wave, anisotropic absorptive and refractive properties result in dichroic and birefringent optical phenomena both in the linear and nonlinear optics regimes. Such material properties have led to a diverse array of useful polarization components in the visible and near-infrared, but mature technology is non-existent in the terahertz (THz). Here, we review several novel types of anisotropic material responses observed in the THz frequency range, including both linear and circular anisotropy, which have long-term implications for the development of THz polarization optics. We start with the extreme linear anisotropy of macroscopically aligned carbon nanotubes, arising from their intrinsically anisotropic dynamic conductivity. Magnetically induced anisotropy will then be reviewed, including the giant Faraday effects observed in semiconductors, semimetals, and two-dimensional electron systems., Comment: 26 pages, 11 figures

We study macroscopically-aligned single-wall carbon nanotube arrays with uniform lengths via polarization-dependent terahertz and infrared transmission spectroscopy. Polarization anisotropy is extreme at frequencies less than $\sim$3 THz with no sign of attenuation when the polarization is perpendicular to the alignment direction. The attenuation for both parallel and perpendicular polarizations increases with increasing frequency, exhibiting a pronounced and broad peak around 10 THz in the parallel case. We model the electromagnetic response of the sample by taking into account both radiative scattering and absorption losses. We show that our sample acts as an effective antenna due to the high degree of alignment, exhibiting much larger radiative scattering than absorption in the mid/far-infrared range. Our calculated attenuation spectrum clearly shows a non-Drude peak at $\sim$10 THz in agreement with the experiment., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

We demonstrate coherent control of cyclotron resonance (CR) in a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). We use a sequence of terahertz pulses to control the amplitude of CR oscillations in an arbitrary fashion via phase-dependent coherent interactions. We observe a self-interaction effect, where the 2DEG interacts with the terahertz field emitted by itself within the decoherence time, resulting in a revival and collapse of quantum coherence. These observations are accurately describable using {\em single-particle} optical Bloch equations, showing no signatures of electron-electron interactions, which verifies the validity of Kohn's theorem for CR in the coherent regime., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures