THz Imaging

Over the past years, Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy (THz-TDS) has emerged as a powerful tool for a variety of applications. Many interesting phenomena lie in this frequency range, and as a result, THz-TDS has been extensively used in characterizing various materials such as semiconductors. The potential for imaging applications was first demonstrated by Nuss et al [1], and since then many different imaging modalities have been developed. The images captured using conventional imaging techniques at THz frequencies however, suffer from low resolution due to the relatively large wavelengths at these frequencies (0.3 mm at 1 THz). Despite this apparent limitation, imaging at THz frequencies remains very attractive because of the low energies involved (~4 meV at 1 THz) and the spectroscopic information that can be extracted from THz-TDS measurements. To improve the resolution, near-field techniques can be employed. Research at the Institute of Semiconductor Electronics is currently directed towards developing such high-resolution techniques to facilitate the imaging of biological samples, for example. Previous work in the area of THz imaging was the design and implementation of a non-destructive method to characterize thin film solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC)[2].

Publications:

[1] B. B. Hu and M. C. Nuss,OPT LETT 20 (16), 1716 (1995).

[2] M Brucherseifer, PH Bolivar, H Klingenberg, and H Kurz,APPL PHYS B-LASERS 72(3), 361-366 (2001).

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