So what is the immediate future for THz in the UK?
In Leeds Prof Giles Davies is supervising the final few months of work that will bring some of the world's best THz expertise under one roof in Yorkshire. Formerly part of Cambridge's pioneering THz team, Davies and his colleagues will carry out research into sources, detectors and applications of THz radiation.
Davies said the potential applications of THz are extensive, although he stressed the need for caution at what is still a relatively early stage for much of the research.
Even so, he has every reason to be excited about the new centre. As well as its size, the facility will have the advantage of the considerable expertise and experience built up over the years in Leeds itself and Cambridge.
The two major THz projects mounted by the EU have both been led by UK research teams. There are Teravision, which investigated the use of THz in medicine, and Wanted, a wireless networking initiative. A third may follow soon. 'We're doing phenomenally well and are certainly very much up with the pack. The reason we're leading these things is that we have the credibility, not just running the programmes themselves but in the science behind the programmes,' said Davies.
He and his colleagues will spend the next few years exploring numerous potential applications for THz. These include combustion and flame analysis. 'We will be looking at whether THz radiation is capable of investigating the by-products of flames,' said Davies.THz could be useful in specialised fields such as the grain industry. The detection of moisture content and the location of water in a batch of grain would be a valuable tool in the milling process, said Davies. The technology may also have medical applications beyond detection of skin cancer. It could, for example, be used to look through bandages to assess the status of a healing wound. This would avoid having to remove a dressing if the healing process is proceeding well.
According to Davies, THz could also become a valuable addition to the panoply of communications technologies. 'As far as communications is concerned you are unlikely to be able to send a THz signal around the world,' he said. 'But it is possible to imagine a local area THz network, perhaps in an office or factory.'
The properties of THz would make it suitable for such networks on several counts, said Davies, not least containing the signal within the four walls of the building. 'You would have the advantages of the broad bandwidth, but if any of your industrial competitors was standing outside the window they would not be able to access it because THz is absorbed so heavily.'
Other work underway around the world includes the investigation of THz as a means of detecting microscopic flaws in steel. Davies said German researchers were using THz to look at the surface of steel as it left the production process, using it to spot indentations and impurities that remain invisible under other inspection processes.
Other specialist inspection activity includes New York-based research to see whether THz can be used to examine the tiles on the Space Shuttle. Defects on the tiles on the outside of the shuttle were identified as a possible cause of the Columbia disaster, and the US researchers hope THz could detect problems on future flights.Research into skin cancer detection will form part of Leeds' investigations, but Davies is anxious not to stoke expectations too early. 'I know what everyone wants to hear is that we are going to use this to detect and cure skin cancer. But we're not there yet, and won't be there for a number of years.'
With regard to security, the area that has brought THz to a wider public's attention via the pages of the national press, Davies is especially cautious. The possibility of THz being used to screen people and baggage for hidden weapons and explosives has struck a chord with an increasingly security-obsessed global media.'There have been some recent articles that haven't perhaps been quite as rigorous as they could have been. It certainly is on the table, because security has obviously been a very important area particularly in the past few years.'
Davies does have funding specifically to explore these areas. 'We are going to be looking at things like explosives to see whether we can use THz radiation to locate them, to maybe see whether they are concealed in somebody's clothing. But I really can't say any more until we have done the research, and that's not going to be for another three years.'
Industrial process applications could, according to Davies, emerge from among the plethora of research initiatives to be early examples of working THz systems. 'There is a whole range of things that people are trying. The truth is nobody currently knows what the killer application is going to be. It would be great to say that we are going to cure cancer doing this. On the other hand, it could end up looking at something on a conveyor belt in a factory, which could still be a multimillion-pound industry.'
Davies's contemporaries at the THz commercial sharp end will certainly hope he is right. TeraView is very much a pioneering venture, not just in THz technology but delivering working commercial products.
Unsurprisingly, the company is less cautious than Davies over proclaiming THz as a technology that is very much of the here and now. Its slick website is packed with examples of why medical screening, security and industrial processes could all benefit from the exploitation of the THz gap.
One of TeraView's key advantages is its status as a first mover in commercialising the technology. Mick Withers, the company's chief engineer, said this also brings its own special challenges. 'We have to be especially diligent in producing our products because nobody else has done the groundwork for us.'
Like its colleagues in academic research, TeraView is looking at the plethora of potential uses for THz systems and trying to assess their merits. As a commercial venture it has to pace itself and be led to a certain extent by its various potential markets. In this respect TeraView has been canny in its development programme, creating a common platform that can be adapted relatively easily to the needs of various applications and industries.
'We have fundamental components that can be used in four completely different markets,' said Withers. Although the core technology is the same, the user interface is unique to the demands of the particular application. 'Customers in each sector would think that they were completely different products,' added Withers.
Although TeraView is developing products suitable for each of its core areas - medical, security, pharmaceutical and non-destructive testing - the rate of progress towards full-scale commercialisation will inevitably vary.
Medical applications, for example, have more hurdles to jump in terms of gaining regulatory approval. The pharmaceutical industry, however, is particularly interested in THz's potential as an aid to drug discovery, formulation and manufacturing. 'The pharmaceutical industry is quite happy to put its money where its mouth is. It is used to the R&D phase of technology.'
Happily for TeraView, a string of heavyweight investors have also been prepared to put their cash behind the potential of THz.
TTP Ventures, an investor specialising in early-stage technologies, helped spin TeraView out of Toshiba's Cambridge Research Laboratory and has been a staunch supporter of the company ever since. David Connell, the investment firm's chairman, said TeraView's rapid progress in THz had made it 'the leading company in the field without a shadow of a doubt. It is a firm with the potential to become a very serious business.'
In the wider context Connell said the UK was 'in as good a position as it possibly could be' in terms of THz development. 'But the big issue is to ensure it remains at the front of the pack,' said Connell. He claimed that the government had 'a key role to play' in this respect. 'In certain sectors the customers and the big specifiers are from the government, for security applications, for example,' said Connell, who added that the support and involvement of government agencies would be a major boost to the emergence of the technology. 'Fortunately it looks as though that is happening.'
Through grants to academics and support for commercial programmes, the police and military are already showing they mean business when it comes to THz. The medical sector, ever cautious when it comes to new technologies, will surely follow. And the industrial sector has never been known to ignore a technology with the potential to boost productivity and efficiency.
If the roll-out of THz gathers the momentum that many predict, the UK has a golden opportunity to reap the rewards.
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