Scientists are a step closer to developing a fast and cost effective camera that utilises terahertz radiation, potentially opening the opportunity for them to be used in non-invasive security and medical screening.
A research team led by Professor Emma Pickwell-Macpherson from the University of Warwick Department of Physics and involving Rayko Ivanov Stantchev and scientists from the Department of Electronic Engineering at The Chinese University of Hong Kong has reached a crucial milestone towards developing single-pixel terahertz imaging technology for use in biomedical and industrial applications.
Their single-pixel terahertz camera reached 100 times faster acquisition than the previous state-of-the-art without adding any significant costs to the entire system or sacrificing the sub-picosecond temporal resolution needed for the most sought-after applications.
The breakthrough has been published in the journal Nature Communications.
The potentials and problems of Terahertz radiation
Terahertz (THz) radiation, or T-rays, sit in-between infrared and WiFi on the electromagnetic spectrum. T-rays have different properties from other electromagnetic waves, most notably they can see through many common materials such as plastics, ceramics and clothes, making them potentially useful in non-invasive inspections. Another quality is that the low-energy photons of T-rays are non-ionizing, making them very safe in biological settings including security and medical screening. They are also highly sensitive to water and can observe minute changes to the hydration state of biological matter. This means that diseases perturbing the water content of biological matter, such as skin cancer, can potentially be detected using T-rays in vivo without any histological markers.
Efficient detection and generation of T-rays has been possible in laboratory settings for the last 25 years. However, THz technology is still not widely used in commercial settings as the cost, robustness and/or ease of use is still lagging behind for commercial adoption in industrial settings.
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