TERAHERTZ RADIATIONS INDEX

TOPIC

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ABSTRACT2 1. 1.1 1.2 1.3 INTRODUCTION...8 HISTORY8 WHAT ARE T-RAYS?............................................................................................................. 8 TERAHERTZ VERSUS SUBMILLIMETER WAVE.10

2. SOURCES FOR THZ RADIATION11 2.1 NORMAL THZ SOURCES..11 2.2 BROADBAND SOURCES...11 2.2.1 PHOTOCONDUCTION APPROACH.12 2.2.2 OPTICAL RECTIFICATION...13 2.3 NARROWBAND SOURCES...14 2.3.1 GAS LASERS14 2.3.2 FREE ELECTRON LASERS14 2.3.3 QUANTUM CASCADE LASERS...15 2.4 PHOTOMIXING...15 3. 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4. 4.1 4.2 5. 5.1 5.2 6. 6.1 6.2 7. 7.1 THZ DETECTORS...16 BOLOMETERS16 HETERODYNE SENSORS.16 EXPERIMENTAL SETUP FOR THZ DETECTION..16 THZ LENSES17 SPECTROSCOPIC TECHNIQUES FOR THZ RANGE.19 FOURIER TRANSFORM SPECTROSCOPY (FTS) .19 THZ TIME DOMAIN SPECTROSCOPY..19 TERAHERTZ IMAGING.............21 TOMOGRAPHIC IMAGING...21 HOW TERAHERTZ WAVES TEAR APART DNA.22 PROPERTIES OF THZ RADIATION.24 WATER SENSITIVITY...24 SAFETY / MEDICAL IMPLICATION24 APPLICATIONS...26 POLAR MOLECULES.26
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7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11 7.12 7.13 8. 9.

MATERIAL CHARACTERIZATION.27 QUALITY CONTROL.....27 STUDY OF HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL WORK..27 BIOLOGY (BOTANY) .28 BIOMEDICAL...28 SECURITY CHECKS (AIRPORT)..29 MOLECULE FINGERPRINTING...30 SCREENING.31 T-RAY ENDOSCOPY..31 THZ COMMUNICATION...32 THZ HALL EFFECT STUDY OF SEMICONDUCTORS.32 COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS..33 CONCLUSION.34 REFRENCES35

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INTRODUCTION
1.1 History
Terahertz radiation was discovered in 1896.Unless they're at a temperature of absolute zero (273.16C), all objects, animate and inanimate, give off terahertz radiation (called T-rays), and the heat from molecular vibrations. This black-body radiation is emitted at such low intensities typically less than a millionth of a watt per square centimeter that we are unaware of it. T -rays are part of the broad spectrum of electromagnetic radiation that includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays. T-rays lie between microwaves, whose wavelengths measure from centimeters to millimeters, and light, with wavelengths measured in nanometers, or billionths of a meter. The gap between -- the so-called terahertz gap contains wavelengths from 30 to 3000 microns, or 100 GHz to 10 THz when measured in frequency. The terahertz gap has been called the final frontier of the electromagnetic spectrum because th ere has never been an easy or cheap way to either generate or measure T-rays, something that is only begun to change with the advent of new technology in the past decade. T-rays cycle at a trillion (tera = 1012) cycles per second, compared to the fastest PC that runs at a mere 2.4 gigahertz (giga = 109), which cycles in billions per second. The reason why T-rays are so hard to generate in the lab is that they are kind of in no mans land, stuck between the worlds of optics and electronics and because of this only these rays have immense scientific and technological importance.1-3 Measuring how an object absorbs the terahertz radiation reveals clues about the properties of the material.4 The unique properties of these radiations make them a safer and potentially excellent complement to existing imaging methods such as X-rays and ultrasound5. The safety and sensitivity of T-rays may allow the technology to someday play a part in security searches for weapons and toxins, and could improve detection of breast and skin cancer.

1.2 What are T-rays? In physics, terahertz radiation refers to electromagnetic waves propagating at frequencies in the terahertz range. It is termed sub millimeter radiation, terahertz waves, terahertz light, T-rays, Twaves, T-light, T-lux, and THz. The term typically applies to electromagnetic radiation with
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frequencies between high-frequency edge of the microwave band, 300 gigahertz (31011 Hz), and the long-wavelength edge of far-infrared light, 3000 GHz (31012 Hz or 3 THz). In wavelengths, this range corresponds to 0.1 mm (or 100 m) infrared to 1.0 mm microwave. The THz band straddles the region where electromagnetic physics can best be described by its wave-like characteristics (microwave) and its particle-like characteristics (infrared). According to some authors the THz band is also designated as tremendously high frequency or THF.

Figure 1.1: Frequency Spectrum

Terahertz radiation can also help scientists understand the complex dynamics involved in condensedmatter physics and processes such as molecular recognition and protein folding. CW terahertz technology has long interested astronomers because approximately one-half of the total luminosity and 98% of the photons emitted since the Big Bang fall into the sub millimeter and far-infrared, says Peter Siegel of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, CA), and CW THz sources can be used to help study these photons. Like infrared radiation or microwaves, these waves usually travel in line of
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sight. Terahertz radiation is non-ionizing sub millimeter microwave radiation and shares with microwaves the capability to penetrate a wide variety of non-conducting materials. The Earth's atmosphere is a strong absorber of terahertz radiation, so the range of terahertz radiation is quite short, limiting its usefulness for communications. In addition, producing and

detecting coherent terahertz radiation was technically challenging until the 1990s.

1.3 Terahertz versus Sub millimeter Wave

The terahertz band, covering the wavelength range between 0.1 and 1 mm, is identical to the sub millimeter wavelength band. However, typically, the term "terahertz" is used more often in marketing in relation to generation and detection with pulsed lasers, as in terahertz time domain spectroscopy, while the term "sub millimeter" is used for generation and detection with microwave technology, such as harmonic multiplication.

Figure 1.2: The Terahertz Gap

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SOURCES FOR THZ RADIATION

Till this day the lack of high power, portable, room temperature THz sources is the most significant limitation of THz systems. For this reason this is a very lively research field. Some very promising new approaches have the potential to bring terahertz technology a step further to everyday applications. But these sources are still not fully developed technologies. So this chapter tries to provide an overview over the currently used sources and these new approaches. Further one in this section we divide between incoherent thermal sources, broadband pulsed (T-Ray) techniques, and narrowband continuous wave methods. Terahertz radiation is emitted as part of the Black Body radiation from anything with temperatures greater than about 10 kelvin. This Black-Body radiation is emitted at such low intensities typically less than a millionth of a watt per square centimeter.

As of 2004 the only viable sources of terahertz radiation were: Normal THZ sources Optical rectification Broadband short-pulse terahertz source The free electron laser (FEL) Photo mixing

2.1 Normal THz Sources

THz radiation is naturally emitted by all bodies. The blackbody radiation in this spectral range, below the far infrared, is comparatively weak - lower than 1W per cm3. Sources like light bulbs in the visible spectrum are therefore unsuitable.

2.2 Broadband Sources

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Following techniques are providing broadband pulsed THz sources based on the excitation of different materials with ultra short laser pulses. These are photo carrier acceleration in photo conducting antennas, second order non-linear effects in electro optic crystals, plasma oscillations, and electronic non linear transmission lines. Unfortunately most of the different technologies have very low conversion efficiencies (nano 2 Sources for THz radiation to micro watts compared to about 1W power from the optical source).

Hemispherical lens for collimation Figure 2.1: Broadband Short-Pulse

The emerging field of time domain spectroscopy (TDS) typically relies on a broadband short-pulse terahertz source. A split antenna is fabricated on a semiconductor substrate to create a switch. A dc bias is placed across the antenna, and an ultra short pump-laser pulse (<100 fs) is focused in the gap in the antenna. The biaslaser pulse combination allows electrons to rapidly jump the gap, and the resulting current in the antenna produces a terahertz electromagnetic wave. This radiation is collected and collimated with an appropriate optical system to produce a beam.

2.2.1 Photoconduction Approach In the photoconduction approach a photoconductor (GaAs, InP) is illuminated with ultra fast laser pulses (with photon energy greater than the Band gap of the material) to create electron hole pairs. An electric field of about 10V/cm is generated in the semiconductor by applying a DC voltage. Then the free carriers accelerate in the static bias field and form a short photocurrent. Because of the
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acceleration

this

moving electrons

radiate

electromagnetic

waves.

According to

these

photoconductive emitters are capable of relatively large average THz powers of 40 W and bandwidths as high as 4 THz (see also references mentioned in the indicated article). This source operates with comparatively low power, but the beam is stable and coherent with well known temporal characteristics. Hence it is used for spectroscopy with high spectral resolution and excellent signal-to noise ratio and for imaging technologies.

2.2.2 Optical rectification Another approach is the Optical rectification. Here again we use ultrafast laser pulses, but we make use of the non-linear properties of materials. This means that the optical beam itself illuminates a crystal with is the origin of our terahertz radiation. These non-linear effects arise when one high intensities. The required lower energy photons are achieved through a process called down conversion. This means that one incoming beam splits into two outgoing frequencies of lower frequencies. According to research in this field has focused in the past on materials like GaAs, ZnTe, and organic crystals. This process provides terahertz radiation only with very low efficiency, but has the advantage of very high bandwidths. Frequencies up to 41 THz have been accomplished by one group.

Figure 2.2: Optical Rectification

According to the THz range in electromagnetic spectrum, it can be generated from both the optical and the microwave sides. There are techniques of two categories developed for the generation THz pulses. One of them includes free electron lasers, photoconductive switching and dipolar antennas.
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They are sometimes called resonant optical rectification since the THz emission results from the polarization change that follows the transport of excited carriers in an applied or surface electric field. In the far-field, the electric field is proportional to the time derivative of the surface current. The bandwidth of the generated pulse is usually limited to a few THz. The basic concept of this method is sketched in figure.

2.3 Narrowband Sources

The techniques under development range from up conversion of radio frequency sources to different kinds of lasers, including gas lasers, free electron lasers, and in particular quantum cascade lasers. One technique to generate (low power) continuous wave THz radiation is through up conversion of lower frequency microwave oscillators. Frequencies up to 2.7 THz have been demonstrated.

2.3.1 Gas Lasers Another common source are gas lasers. The gases used are mainly methanol and hydrogen cyanide. In this method a C02 laser pumps a low-pressure gas cavity with one of the gases mentioned, which lasers at the gas molecules emission lines. These frequencies are not continuous tunable and require large cavities and high (kilowatts) power supplies with only output power of the magnitude of milli watts.

2.3.2 Free Electron Lasers Extremely high power THz emissions have been demonstrated using free electron lasers with energy recovering linacs. Free electron lasers use a beam of electron bunches of high velocity propagating through a vacuum. This bunches of electrons pass a spatial varying magnetic field, which causes the electrons to oscillate and emit photons. Mirrors confine the electrons to the electron beam line to form the gain medium for the laser. But such systems are huge in costs and size, and require often a dedicated facility. However they can generate continuous or pulsed waves with a brightness of several orders better than any other source. Another highly awaited source for THz radiation is semiconductor lasers. In the past these lasers have revolutionist applications in industry because of their small size, low costs, and high efficiency. Such a compact system for THz radiation is still missing. The first terahertz laser was demonstrated over 20 years ago. This laser was based on lightly doped germanium at cryogenic temperatures under crossed electric and magnetic fields. These lasers are

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tunable through the applied magnetic field or external stress. But they have many inherent limitations such as low efficiency, low output power, and the need for cryogenic cooling.

2.3.3 Quantum Cascade Laser Another approach to build semiconductor lasers in the terahertz region is based on the newer technique of a Quantum Cascade Laser. These lasers were first demonstrated in 1994. A Quantum Cascade Laser consists of periodic layers of two semiconductor materials, which form a series of coupled quantum wells and barriers with a repeating structure. The wells and barriers are usually nanometer thick layers of GaAs between potential barriers of Al- GaAs. Quantum confinement within the wells causes the conduction bands to split into a number of distinct sub bands. By transition of electrons from a higher state to a lower state in the well light is emitted. As the difference between the energy levels is determined by the thickness of the layers, the produced frequency can be chosen by design of the layers. Unfortunately these lasers operate only at very low temperatures. The energy spacing between the inter sub bands is about 0.004 eV. Compared to room temperature kBT 0.025eV is this very small. This means that if kBT is not lower than electrons are exited into higher sub band states. In a quantum cascade laser the sub bands couple from the lower state to the higher state of the following unit. If the electrons are now all in upper states they cannot jump anymore through the stairs of the well structure and cannot be used for the laser anymore.

2.4 Photo Mixing

Many other terahertz source technologies have been investigated in the past four decades. Numerous groups worldwide are producing tunable CW terahertz radiation using photo mixing of near-IR lasers. For example, Gerald Frasers group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology is frequency mixing the output of a near-IR, fixed-frequency diode laser with that of a tunable Ti: sapphire laser in a low temperature-grown gallium arsenide photomixer fabricated with the appropriate antenna pattern. This approach yields tens of nanowatts of tunable output with a spectral content governed by the spectral content of the near-IR laser.

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THZ DETECTORS
The detection of THz radiation necessitates very sensitive methods, as sources come with low output power and the thermal background radiation is comparatively high. For broadband detection direct detectors are based on thermal absorption commonly used. These systems require cooling to reduce the thermal background. Systems common used are helium cooled silicon, germanium, and InSb bolometers.

3.1 Bolometers
Bolometers measure the incidented electromagnetic radiation through absorption and the resulting heating. The heating in turn is measured through the change in resistance. Extremely sensitive bolometers are based on the change of state of a superconductor such as niobium.

3.2 Heterodyne Sensors

If high spectral resolution is required, heterodyne sensors are used. In these systems the frequency of interest is produced by a local oscillator and heterodyned with the external signal. The downshifted signal is then amplified and measured. For pulsed THz detection in THz Time Domain Spectroscopy systems coherent detectors are required. The electro optic effect in birefringent crystals is used for the measurement of the THz beam. The electric field of the THz radiation modulates the birefringence of the sensor crystal. This in turn modulates then the polarization of the optical beam passing through the crystal. This modulation can be measured to find the amplitude and phase of the applied electric field. Very thin crystals and very short laser pulses allow the detection of radiation in the THz region. Photoconductive antennas are widely used for pulsed detection - the structure is identical to the photoconductive antennas earlier discussed, but here the appearing current is measured.

3.3 Experimental Setup for THZ Detection

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Absorption measurable Impossible to measure high-loss samples

Figure 3.1: Transmission Mode

3.4 THz Lenses

Figure 3.2: Terahertz Lenses

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Figure 3.3: Terahertz Lens Used In Setup

Material Used :- Polyethylene

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SPECTROSCOPIC TECHNIQUES FOR THZ RANGE

It should be mentioned here that one can manipulate THz beams with mirrors and lenses as with light in the visible spectrum, but different materials have to be used. These are opaque for our eyes, but transparent for THz radiation. Two used materials are high resistivity silicon and high density polyethylene. The former has no absorption or chromatic dispersion over the whole THz range, but has a high refraction index and thus relatively large Fresnel losses. The latter has lower Fresnel losses, but has some small absorption above 1 THz, and a resonance at 2.2 THz.

4.1 Fourier Transform Spectroscopy (FTS)

According to Fourier Transform Spectroscopy (FTS) is the most common technique for studying molecular resonances. With this technology one can characterize materials from THz to infrared frequencies. The sample is placed in an optical interferometer and illuminated with a broadband thermal source. Of interest is the path length difference of one of the interferometer arms. The interference signal is then detected with an helium cooled bolometer. The Fourier transformation yields to the spectral power density of the sample. The main disadvantage of FTS is its limited spectral resolution. If a much higher spectral resolution is required one can use a narrowband system with a tunable THz source or detector. This technique is used in passive systems for monitoring thermal emission lines of molecules, particularly in astronomy applications.

4.2 THZ Time Domain Spectroscopy

Another more recent technology is the THz Time Domain Spectroscopy (THz TDS). This method of measurement is also termed Terahertz Pulsed Imaging (TPI) and as the name suggests the dominant method of imaging. In this system the pulsed optical beam created by an ultrafast laser is splitted into a probe beam and a pump beam.

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Figure 4.1: THZ-TDS SYSTEM

The pump beam is incidented on the THz emitter (the THz source) to generate picoseconds terahertz pulses. The terahertz radiation is collimated and then focused on the sample with parabolic mirrors. After transmission through the target the beam is collimated and refocused on the THz detector. These detectors can measure the electric field coherently. The optical probe beam is used to gate the detector and to measure the THz electric field instantaneously. At this the optical delay stage (computer controlled) is used to measure the transmitted terahertz pulse profile at a discrete number of time points to provide temporal information. Following Ferguson B., Zhang Xi-Cheng, has this technology disadvantages compared with Fourier transform spectroscopy described before. They say that the spectral resolution was worse than with narrowband techniques and its spectral range much less than of FTS, but it had some other advantages that made it so important: The transmitted electric field is measured coherently. Therefore high time resolved phase information can be received.

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TERAHERTZ IMAGING
Terahertz Imaging or also called T-Ray Imaging is based on time domain spectroscopy (TDS). The possibility to detect the radiation coherently makes it possible to record not only the intensity, but also the time resolved amplitude and phase of the electric field. In turn this leads to the possibility of obtaining a spectrum by Fourier transformation of the time domain signal. Images are obtained with THz-TDS by spatial scanning of the object for imaging. This is performed by using raster scanning of either the terahertz beam or the sample itself.

Figure 5.1: Terahertz Imaging

5.1 Tomographic Imaging

An imaging system in which the beam is reflected off of the sample, rather than transmitted can be used for tomographic imaging. This means that the regions of reflection in the sample are measured. This is possible because the arrival time of the reflected THz waves can be determined with an accuracy of a few femtoseconds. This is less than the pulse duration, so the positions of reflecting surfaces can be determined with accuracy of few micrometers, but under the condition that successive reflections are well separated in time. The applications of tomographic imaging are later discussed. D.M. Mittleman says about THz-TDS imaging: "Because THz-TDS does not require any cryogenics
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or shielding for the detector, it has the potential to be the first THz imaging system that is portable, compact and reliable enough for practical applications in real world environments".

Figure 5.2: THREE DIMENSIONAL TOMOGRAPH OF A TOOTH SHOWING AREAS OF DECAY T-ray tomography is used for 3-dimensional (3D) imaging applications using computed tomography (T-ray CT). T-ray CT allows the three dimensional structure of the target to be imaged and also provides rich spectroscopic information on the targets far-infrared spectral response which may allow functional imaging. T-ray CT is based on the same principle as X-ray CT. Trays are focused, transmitted through the target, and detected. The target (or emitter and detector) is then raster scanned and rotated. The hardware is a simple extension standard 2 dimensional THz imaging systems. The filtered back projection algorithm is used to reconstruct the complex refractive index, n, of the material. This is repeated for each horizontal cross-section and each frequency to build a 3D spectroscopic image of the target. This method has recently been applied to bone samples.

5.2 How Terahertz Waves Tear Apart DNA

A new model of the way the THz waves interact with DNA explains how the damage is done and why evidence has been so hard to gather. But what of the health effects of terahertz waves? At first
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glance, it's easy to dismiss any notion that they can be damaging. Terahertz photons are not energetic enough to break chemical bonds or ionize atoms or molecules, the chief reasons why higher energy photons such as x-rays and UV rays are so bad for us. But could there be another mechanism at work? The evidence that terahertz radiation damages biological systems is mixed. "Some studies reported significant genetic damage while others, although similar, showed none," say Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and a few buddies. Now these guys think they know why. Alexandrov and co have created a model to investigate how THz fields interact with double-stranded DNA and what they've found is remarkable. They say that although the forces generated are tiny, resonant effects allow THz waves to unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. That's a jaw dropping conclusion. And it also explains why the evidence has been so hard to garner. Ordinary resonant effects are not powerful enough to do do this kind of damage but nonlinear resonances can. These nonlinear instabilities are much less likely to form which explains why the character of THz genotoxic effects are probabilistic rather than deterministic, say the team. This should set the cat among the pigeons. Of course, terahertz waves are a natural part of environment, just like visible and infrared light. But new generations of cameras are set to appear that not only record terahertz waves but also bombard us with them. And if our exposure is set to increase, the question that urgently needs answering is what level of terahertz exposure is safe.

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PROPERTIES OF THZ RADIATION

THz radiation has some properties that open a wide range of applications, particularly for imaging. On the other have materials very interesting properties in this frequency range: Compared to microwaves, THz waves have more energy so they can penetrate deeper and make sharper images due to their shorter wavelength. Additionally it is expected that terahertz frequency radiation should be scattered less than visible and near infrared frequencies, as the amount of Rayleigh scattering decreases with the fourth power of the wavelength. If one will illuminate materials with THz radiation they will show these characteristics: Polar liquids absorb strongly in the terahertz band. An example of such a liquid is water. Metals are opaque to terahertz radiation, whereas non-metals such as plastics, paper-products, and non-polar substances are transparent. Dielectrics in contrast have characteristic absorption features peculiar to each material.

6.1 Water sensitivity

The minimum detectable water concentration is given by n.x ~ 1016 cm2 n is the density of water molecules and x is the length of the path traversed by the terahertz beam in the material. It is also absorbed by water, or a material that contains water, like human skin.

6.2 Safety / Medical implication

Implications on living tissue are not expected as T-Rays are non-ionising in contrast to x-rays or ultraviolet (UV) light. Moreover, Terahertz signals are strongly absorbed by water, so that terahertz radiation cannot go through living tissue because of the high percentage of water in it. The article nevertheless warns that it should be taken into consideration that there is also the possibility of thermo-mechanical and thermo-chemical effects for the pulsed radiation used in terahertz pulsed imaging (TPI) / (TDS). A project that works on this issue is called THz-Bridge. The unique properties of these radiations make them a safer and potentially excellent complement to existing imaging methods such as X-rays and ultrasound.

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The safety and sensitivity of T-rays may allow the technology to someday play a part in security searches for weapons and toxins, and could improve detection of breast and skin cancer. But some terahertz imagers have another ability, one not even claimed by the comic-book specs: not only can they see hidden objects, but they can tell what those objects are made of. Many explosives, including all the plastic explosives popular with terrorist groups, reflect and transmit a characteristic combination of terahertz waves that make them distinguishable from other materials, even those that might seem identical to the eye and hand. That same chemical-discriminating capability spectroscopy also applies to pharmaceuticals and drugs. In essence, different materials appear as different colors to the terahertz imaging system. T-ray technology will probably find its first big uses in security-related applications, now an enormously fast-growing business because of recent high-profile terrorist attacks. The technologys appeal here is undeniable: in a terahertz image, a gun or a knife shines through whatever clothing its concealed ineven a plastic knife shows up, because of the way its sharp edges scatter the radiation. And yet, unlike X-rays, T-ray screeners could be used routinely on people, because the radiation is harmless.

Figure 6.1: TERAHERTZ IMAGE OF MEN WITH HIDDEN KNIFE AND GUN

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APPLICATIONS

T-rays can go through just about anything except metal and water.3 This ability of T-ray swhich is a result of their short wavelengths, make them ideal candidates for certain types of medical imaging. The T-ray imaging technique is notable in that it can distinguish between different chemical compositions inside a material even when the object looks uniform in visible light. This research is significant we because, although terahertz time-domain spectroscopy has been done experimentally in the past, it has never been used in an imaging system. This is an exciting technique that lets us see things in a completely new way. With high-powered coherent terahertz beams we could make fullfield, real-time, video-rate movies, which could be very useful in medical maging. Materials can be characterized by measuring the amounts of distortion from absorption, dispersion and reflection of the T-rays passing through to a detector. Metals and other materials with high electrical conductivity were completely opaque to terahertz radiation. Many compounds changed the T-rays in characteristic ways, due to absorption or reflection. Molecules and chemical compounds, particularly in the gas phase, showed strong absorption lines that can serve as "fingerprints" of the molecules. use x-ray scanners to examine luggage. Hospitals are equipped with ultrasound scanners and MRI (magneto resonance imaging) machines. In industry x-rays are used for package inspection and materials can be scanned for defects with microwaves or ultrasound. But although these technologies are very successful they all have shortcomings. In some cases these old techniques can be replaced by THz based methods, but there are also applications, which are unavailable with other frequencies, but possible with THz due to the characteristics of the materials as described before. Hence, many possible applications rely either on the extreme sensitivity of water or the ability to propagate through common packaging materials or both. The list of possible applications is quite extensive. Therefore, the examples of applications showed here are only a cutout and not a complete list:

7.1 Polar Molecules

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With THz radiation one has the ability to detect and identify most polar molecules in the gas phase. This application requires THz radiation with broad bandwidth and relies on the fact that, as in the mid-infrared, many molecules have characteristic "fingerprint" absorption spectra in the terahertz region. For these reason it was astronomy in the past, which required research in the THz field because of the huge amount of information available in space through THz radiation.

7.2 Material Characterization

For physics this new technology is very interesting because they can use it for characterization of materials like semiconductors and lightweight molecules. The radiation can be used to determine the carrier concentration and mobility of semiconductors, and in the superconductor research it can be used to determine the parameters of superconducting materials.

7.3 Quality Control

THz imaging systems are ideal for imaging dry dielectric substances including paper, cardboard, thin wood, most plastics and ceramics, because these materials are relatively non-absorbing in this frequency range. And additionally, these materials cannot be analysed with optical frequencies, because they are opaque for them or with x-rays, which have no absorption to provide contrast for imaging. Therefore spatially resolved transmission measurements can be used in the area of quality control of packaged goods, if the packaging consists of one of the transparent materials listed above. In many industries x-ray imaging is currently used for such tasks. T-ray imaging is thus a desirable alternative because of the health and safety issues involved with ionising radiation. The sensitivity to water is important here as well. To measure the water content in a cardboard or a plastic package. of moisture sensitive products exist various methods, but these are not applicable if the content is Obviously, THz radiation is predestined to be used here.

7.4 Study of Historical and Archaeological Work

Terahertz imaging methods work with extremely low powers, about 2 to 3 magnitudes of order lower than the blackbody radiation in this frequency range. The radiation is therefore non invasive to historical work, neither to paintings or paper in common nor to any kind of stone or metal. Thus this technique could be useful in history, archaeology etc. D.M.Mittleman discusses the possibility of using THz imaging for the investigation of under drawings beneath paintings. This could be an
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excellent complimentary technology to the mid infrared and x-ray based imaging systems currently used for such studies.

7.5 Biology (botany)

This extreme sensitivity to water content is of great interest here as a method of measuring the water content of leaves on living plants. Currently there is no accepted non-destructive procedure for measuring the leaf water status of a transpiring plant. The cellular structure can be studied with THz as well. But a fundamental limit here is the resolution of current systems .

Figure 7.1: WATER CONTENT BASED IMAGE OF A LEAF

7.6 Biomedical
In the area of biomedical diagnostics we can make use of THz tomography. Although there is a limited penetration depth of the radiation due to the strong water absorption, which excludes the use of THz radiation in most biomedical research areas, it can be used to examine tissue near the surface, in particular skin and teeth. On the other hand, the sensitive to water enables the investigation of tissue hydration. This opens a range of applications including analysis of burn depth and severity, and detection of skin cancer and caries. A reliable non-invasive probe of burn depth would be of great value to physicians, who currently have no such technology.
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The detection of skin cancer works very well although from the medical part not very well understood yet .It seems that the cancer cells have a distinct different proportion of water compared to healthy cells, so that simply the higher absorption due to the water is measured. Breast cancer detection could be an application as well, because of the lower water content of the tissue there. The detection of caries is another possible application. But there are still problems with the imaging technology which have to be solved before this is ready for application. An overview over the imaging techniques and their problems with tooth imaging as one example can be found. Unlike X-rays, T-rays are safe for human application because they are non-ionizing radiation. Because X-ray photons are such high energy they blast right through soft tissue in the human body so we don't get much contrast in the skin an in the soft tissue. For detecting cancer in the surface X-rays are not that good whereas T-rays are more gentle and will give you more contrast in detecting cancers near the surface. It turns out that somewhere between 50 and 80 % of cancers tend to be surface cancers and so this is the niche where T-rays will win over X-rays. Thus, research teams are researching for the use of terahertz to safely distinguish between cancerous or healthy cells without surgery. The team predicts that T-rays will play a bigger role in the future than X-rays do now. The healthy cells tend to be green and red, the tumors, the dangerous cells tend to be a darker blue color and that means the possibility to use the terahertz radiation to detect the differences between the healthy and the dangerous tissue

7.7 Security checks (Airport)

At airports or other security critical places dangerous non-metallic substances like ceramic knifes or plastic explosives now can be detected with terahertz beams. This is possible because T-Rays get through clothes, but cannot get through the upper skin (because of the water content). Thoughts of using T-rays to help airline pilots peer through fog or help manufacturers check the number of raisins in cereal have been on hold because of the inability to make sufficiently powerful and relatively cheap rays.

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Figure 7.2: THZ SYSTEMS PERFORMANCE

Figure 7.3: THZ SYSTEMS

7.8 Molecule fingerprinting:

Basically the way this is done with T-rays is to blast the molecule with many T-rays all at once and see which frequencies got absorbed by the molecule and which didnt. Each molecule has its own
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characteristic vibrational resonances and measurement of these vibrations can identify one molecule from another called the molecules fingerprinting. T-rays can discriminate for example between anthrax and salt in an envelope because the anthrax molecule will have different vibrational frequencies to the salt molecule. So by blasting the envelope with many different T-ray frequencies all at once and seeing which frequencies get absorbed and which dont gives us a unique fingerprint of anthrax.

7.9 Screening
T-rays have enormous potential for security screening complementing rather than replacing X-ray technology. T-rays can reveal the contents of packaging in a way X-rays cant, so they could be the way of the future for security screening. T-rays can effectively see through packaging - as paper, plastic, clothing, even wood appear transparent under terahertz radiation which distinguishes between properties that are broadly defined as wet and dry. The X-ray scan only tells the shape of the object in there so if it's the shape of a gun, well see a gun. Whereas the T-rays wont just give the shape of the image, it will give the molecular fingerprint. So it will be possible to detect maybe if there is plastic explosives in there and things like that wouldnt normally detect with the X-ray.

7.10 T-ray endoscopy

T-rays interact in a unique way with the sea of electrons flowing across the surface of the metal wire. A similar variation in wave velocity is well-documented for higher frequency radiation in the visible portion of the spectrum but no one had predicted it for such low frequencies. Scientists discovered that propagation of T-rays down bare metal wires has allowed them to make T-ray endoscopes that can carry T-rays around corners and into tight places like pipes and metal containers where it hasn't been feasible to place a T-ray generator. In all T-wave applications today, the beam must be aimed directly from the wave generator at the spot to be sensed. Anything that needs to be scanned has to be moved in front of the beam. Moving the beam isnt practical because the beam has to be fine-tuned each time it's set up, and worse, the whole apparatus is very sensitive to bumps and vibrations, which can easily knock the beam out of alignment but endoscope technology can be helpful. It is a discovery that could extend the reach of terahertz-based sensors for applications as wide-ranging as explosives detection, cancer screening and industrial and post-production quality.

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T-rays production machine is a portable in terms of the size of a photocopier and it's affordable in terms of medical instrumentation. Its a lot cheaper than X-ray machines and MRI machines and surgery as well. At the moment X-rays are huge big machines, they are dangerous, so we dont see x-rays in the home its always in hospitals. Whereas with T-rays because its safe and because it has the potential of becoming very compact, we could envisage a future T-ray machine of smaller size in everybodys home one day for doing regular health checkups ourselves.

7.11 THz Communication

There is a window in H2O absorption around 400 GHz Transmission range is comparable with 60 GHz radiation due to increased gain of antenna (l2) of the same area Has to be relatively short distance (point-to-point) E.g. for 6 dBm (4 mW) source and receiver's sensitivity of -90 dBm, transmission length is 2.0 km. Increasing trans. power by 103 increases the range by only 1 km. More resistant to fog, smoke than IR Channel capacity is estimated to be 380 Gbps (for comparison ISDN is 600 Mbps) Challenges in THz circuitry manufacturing (state of the art)

7.12 THz Hall Effect Study of Semiconductors

Hall Effect is the method of choice for measuring DC properties of thin doped epitaxial layers of semiconductors Uses the so-called 4-point probe method (cf. complex conductivity tensor measurements) Contact resistance is an issue Instead, T-rays serve as applied E-field. Sample reradiates (Hall-field) in different polarization. Measure the two polarizations. Use Drude model to infer carrier density N and mobility with 250 m spatial resolution (~ order of magnitude smaller than is achievable with best 4-point probe method).

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7.13 Commercial Products

Many of the systems in use for research are laboratory based and occupy an area of a few square meters, but more compact and portable systems are under development. An example is the product from TeraView Ltd., Cambridge, UK which is a prototype reflection system for use in dermatology. They launched their product in July of 2002. Teraview is a start up spun out of Toshibas Cambridge research laboratory. Figure .Teraviews prototype TPI-Scan for medical imaging Another commercially available system is the T -Ray 2000 by Picometerix Ann Arbor, Michigan USA.

Figure 7.4: Teraviews prototype TPI-Scan for medical imaging According to there is another system under development by the Zomega Technology Corporation. An announcement can be found on a homepage of the Army Research Office (USA).

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CONCLUTIONS
The growing awareness of T-rays usefulness is like what happened a century ago with X-rays only T-rays will have a much wider range of applications. This feat should now spur interest in the underutilized T-rays from some very different fields. Using ultra-fast lasers and nonlinear crystals to generate coherent light beams, scientists have already put T-rays to good use for a variety of purposes that include the nondestructive imaging of biological and other materials and the manipulation of the electronic properties of semiconductors. It is widely believed that Trays could be put to even better use if the power of T-ray beams could be substantially boosted. Among other potential uses imagined are: safer versions of X-rays; scanning baggage at airports; identifying large biological molecules such as proteins, viruses and bacteria; and even measuring the effectiveness of facial moisturizers. Scientists say that by using T-rays in the same way that radio waves are used to carry signals to and from cell phones, they could create new methods of wireless communication. Yet "terahertz technology is extremely underdeveloped compared with other portions of the electromagnetic energy spectrum," says Nathan Jukam of the Pierre Aigrain Laboratory at the cole Normale Suprieure, in Paris. Terahertz radiation, which is generated by ultra short-duration lasers, is often weak, and it is difficult to amplify the terahertz signal without using large, complex, and costly laser systems Images of planar character targets were generated using a scanning, pulsed THz imaging system. The relationship between image quality, imaging center frequencies, and SNR were quantified using optical character recognition on the resulting images. The imaging metric derived from the success rate of an OCR algorithm was significantly larger for recognizing 8-by-10 mm characters on 600 GHz images than on 400 GHz images.

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