Warwick leads breakthrough in terahertz imaging

The team’s single-pixel terahertz camera is said to have reached 100 times faster acquisition than the previous state-of-the-art without adding any significant costs to the system or forgoing the sub-picosecond temporal resolution needed for medical applications.

UK-developed Terahertz sensor could improve airport security

The team, led by Prof. Emma Pickwell-Macpherson from Warwick University’s Department of Physics and involving Rayko Ivanov Stantchev and scientists from the The Chinese University of Hong Kong, have had their findings published in Nature Communications.

Terahertz (THz) radiation (T-rays) can see through materials including plastics, ceramics and clothes, making them potentially useful in non-invasive inspections. The low-energy photons of T-rays are non-ionising, making them very safe in biological settings such as security and medical screening.

THz technology is not, however, not widely used in commercial settings as the cost, robustness and ease of use is still lagging behind for commercial adoption.

For biomedical applications, very few clinical trials have been performed most notably due to the equipment not being user-friendly and imaging being too slow due to the need for measuring multiple terahertz frequencies for accurate diagnosis. Finally, equipment and running costs need to be within hospital budgets.