End of the Year Blog post, with comments by Dr. Daniel Mittleman, Thomas Tongue,Rob Risser among others, along with my pick for top 5 stories of the year

The end of another year on the Terahertz Technology blog has arrived, and it’s time for my end of the year post. Thank you for reading the blog. Viewer interest has made keeping the blog updated, and current, fun  rather than a chore. Frankly, the greatest benefit for me about creating the blog, is that I’ve learned  about an incredible number of truly amazing scientific developments, companies, and projects which I had never heard of. I’ve also had the pleasure of making contact with a large number of individuals all over the world, who are at the cutting edge of THz development. In terms of viewing audience, the blog had over 8,000 discrete web-visits  in July, and almost that many again this month. The really amazing statistic for me is that the blog has been viewed in 112 Countries. Pretty amazing,  considering, I have no real technical background in Terahertz. So once, again, thank you for reading.

I really have appreciated hearing from some of the leading names in the THz field, some of those comments follow, (some comments were in response to my request for statements about the current state of THz, some were for information on how to have better access to the blog, via RSS, twitter or other mediums, and some were to share information with me. I include just a few of those comments.

“Hi Randy,
As far as I am concerned, the field is still very strong and robust, with an increasing number of research groups and applications spin-offs. One expects research fields to saturate eventually, but with the THz world this has not yet happened. And anyway, we're still having lots of fun, so it's all good. I've been to several THz conferences this year, and they were all very well attended and buzzing with good ideas.” (remainder omitted).

Regards,

Dan (Mittleman)
Rice University

“Hi Randy,

 Things are going well here, we have just moved into a larger facility so I apologize for the delay in writing back. The big news in the past few weeks has been the Prism Awards. Our micro-Z handheld THz system is one of three finalists in the Defense and Security category, and we should find out at the awards banquet at Photonics West which product has won.
All the best,
 -Thomas Tongue
 -------------------------------------------------------
 Thomas Tongue
 CEO, Zomega Terahertz Corporation

Dear Randy,

My name is Wei Jan and I am currently project manager at Chalmers Innovation. Chalmers Innovation is a high-tech business incubator which assists in commercialization of research from Chalmers University in Göteborg, Sweden. Our company’s webpage is: http://www.chalmersinnovation.com/
I am currently undertaking a project on terahertz (THz) radiation sensors. A group of researchers from Chalmers University have developed a novel sensor for THz detection. The sensor is essentially a micro-bolometer, and the novel properties of the sensor are:

1. Broadband sensitivity (possibly up to 10THz at room temperature)
2. High sensitivity (1uW for operation at room temperature)
3. Miniaturized (~1mm in diameter)
4. Ability to be arranged in a camera-like array for real-time imaging (response time about 40ms)
The technology is different from pulse and continuous THz systems because we do not require a specific THz source. However, we are also not a passive system as the sensor is sensitive enough to pick up ambient THz radiation which bounces off the object of interest. Another difference is that we only collect information on amplitude, without phase information, because the sensor functions as a bolometer. The technology is currently in the proof-of-concept phase….. (remainder of letter omitted..)….
Thank you.
Med vänliga hälsningar/Kind regards
Wei Jan Wang
 Evaluation Officer
Chalmers Innovation
 Stena Center 1D

412 92 Göteborg, Sweden

Tel: +46 - 31 772 81 00

(Wei Jan Wang, has promised to send me some articles regarding his findings to post here. I look forward to it.)


"Hi Randy,

I wanted to say thank you for your educational role in helping the public better understand THz, the subtle and often esoteric differences in generating and detecting THz waves, and the real "commercial" significance of these differences.  THz is moving out of the laboratory and into the industrial and homeland security applications.  The true test for industry is the ROI, or payoff, for process control and quality control on the manufacturing floor.  The THz sensor is an enabler for improved productivity and quality, but often only a fraction of the CAPEX our customers invest in their new or retooled manufacturing lines.  We ( API) are making great progress on adoption of THz on the factory floor, as we have been reporting during the past few years.  In addition, our cost reductions and total "value added" content strategy have enabled API to develop solutions that are the lowest cost with the highest performance; both of which are required by the industrial and homeland security markets.


Picometrix ( API) has been working on the technology performance, ruggedization and  applications since 1997, almost 14 years.  Technology adoption usually takes longer than all wished, but as it hits the inflection point, adoption accelerates.  We are really just now seeing the first industrial deployment, which is very exciting for our team that has been dedicated and focussed on this for all those years.  Remember, the Beta nuclear guage was first introduced in 1948 by LFE corporation (now owned by Thermo Fisher).  It took the beta guage a while to penetrate the market.  We at API believe we are on that same penetration path for THz and are excited about the challenges and opportunities, as I hope we have conveyed on our quarterly conferences calls and periodic press releases.  


We hope you and yours have a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.
Warm Regards,
Rob Risser
COO API"

“Randy,
 Your Terahertz Technology Blog is a very nice collection of stories. Thanks for mentioning us at times”
(remainder of email omitted)
Gerhard

 Gerhard S. Schoenthal, PhD • Director of Microelectronics
 Virginia Diodes, Inc. • www.vadiodes.com
 979 2nd St. SE, Suite 309 • Charlottesville, VA 22902

The blog has also been mentioned several times on one of the really innovative, and exciting technical blogs found on the net, Nuit Blanche, such as on March 8^th, 2011,

Randy: Extremely High Refractive Index Terahertz Metamaterial, Enhancing Terahertz scanners using Compressive Sensing Technology. Randy is a lawyer but he blogs on Terahertz technology, who would have thought. The interesting element of Teraherz imaging is that not much is known with regards to the interaction of light with matter. In other words, the dictionary is not well known in the first place.

Dr. Igor Carron, publishes/authors, Nuit Blanche, and I wanted to remind him here of his comment, on August 12^th, 2011. “I am due with a blog entry on Randy's blog on terahertz imaging and compressive sensing. So, Randy if you read this, I have not forgotten you :-).” 

Thanks Igor, my readers would love to hear from a man of your genius, and I look forward to including your post in 2012.
http://nuit-blanche.blogspot.com/2011/12/inception-and-philosophy.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FwCeDd+%28Nuit+Blanche%29

So now, let’s discuss some of the trends, developments, top stories that were posted on the blog in 2011. All comments, are my layman’s thoughts, and perspective on how the year unfolded in Terahertz, based upon the blog entries posted here. I welcome your comments and analysis of the field.

2011 was a year of tremendous discovery, and advancement in this still virgin technology.

The “bridge” over the THz gap, between electronics, and photonics, is quickly being closed, as chronicled in the entries posted here in 2011. In the research and development arena, the excitement about THz, is palpable, and I believe Dr. Dan Mittleman’s comments above, reflect the overall sense that big things are looming in the THz arena.

In contrast, the move of THz from the research laboratory onto the factory floor, and into commercial viability, has been slow, disappointing,  and almost painful. (At least, it’s been painful, to those of us who have invested in the commercial promise of THz. In my opinion, commercial acceptance is really a reflection not only of slow-market acceptance, but also World-wide financial conditions in general).

Let’s discuss the exciting developments in the area of research and funding first, and then turn to the topic of commercial development..

Terahertz funding continues to grow

One of the really interesting things I learned about and observed is the remarkable amount of money which is flowing into THz development in terms of grant money and agency funding. This fact, can’t be discounted given the world-wide financial malaise which has infected the World financial markets since 2008. These days, precious research dollars are only spent in areas where there is a reasonable chance of significant social and/or scientific gain, and the number as well as the size of grants made to a number of University laboratories, and to private companies, is significant, and demonstrates that after careful thoughtful evaluation, THz was right at the top of the funding list.

Grants of 6.3 million dollars to Norte Dame University, 3 million to Ohio State, and 21 million to the University of Utah, are but a few of the many grants to develop THz that were mentioned on the blog.

In the private sector, and in the United States, Advanced Photonix and it’s subsidiary, Picometrix received a number of new US government funded develop contracts, but Virginia Diodes,  Bridge12 and others have enjoyed the fruit of government funded development projects. Space doesn’t permit me to mention them all

There are exciting privately funded projects, also underway, such as the Agilent Technologies, establishment of a millimeter wave research center at the University of California Davis. TeraView is collaborating with the Hyperspectral Engine Lab for Integrated Optical Systems, at Ohio State University to develop semiconductor package failure analysis. These are just a few of the collaborations, and joint ventures mentioned over the last year.

In Europe, the Dot12, and TeraTOP, are but two of the larger well-funded consortiums combining both government, and private company resources to develop products which will be commercial viable, across a vast and diverse spectrum of fields.

Look for some major breakthroughs in 2012.

The trend is towards smaller, more powerful and less costly devices

I have to admit that before I started collecting articles for this blog, I had never heard of metamaterials or graphene. If you follow the blog, you will have notice that there have been an explosion of stories and articles tracking the exciting progress being made with the development of materials, at the atomic level, which are much more conducive to the propagation of THz radiation which is more controlled and more powerful. These developments are the future of THz  commercialization and usefulness. In the present tense, there are any number of companies which have worked on building smaller more powerful units. Advanced Photonix, is set to unveil a next generation T-Ray4000, which promises to be even smaller, more powerful, and less costly than the current generation.

Handheld units, such as the Zomega, Mini-Z handheld, mentioned by Thomas Tongue, will help move Terahertz from the laboratory to the factory floor. The blog has scores of other examples, and if you would like your company mentioned, please comment on this post or send me an email, and I will mention your work.

So now let me pick my top 5 blog stories of 2011 based upon what I thought was most likely to substantially impact THz development over the next year..

1. The work by Edmund Linfield, (among others) in developing a “pulsed” quantum cascade laser, which is 10,000 times more powerful than any similar device and can emit in separate pulses rather than a continuous stream appears to be a huge advance for THz development, and garners my top story of the year.

   http://terahertztechnology.blogspot.com/2011/04/terahertz-pulsed-scanning-which-is.html

2.Applied Research and Photonics, Inc. as the winner of this year’s CLEO/Laser Focus World Innovation Award is my number two pick The award recognizes the company “for the development of a highly sensitive, low-power terahertz scanning reflectometer capable of directly measuring both the concentration gradient and kinetics of permeation of an ingredient across the thickness of a substrate in real time and in a non-invasivefashion.  http://terahertztechnology.blogspot.com/2011/04/applied-research-and-photonics-inc.html

3.   Agilent Technologies decision to partner with Bridge12, to develop a series of new ultra-high-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers at 850 MHz and 1GHz is my third choice because it signifies that Bridge12 will have now have the funding to carry their innovative, and highly useful products into the commercial arena.

http://terahertztechnology.blogspot.com/2011/04/agilent-technologies-to-develop-1-ghz.html

 4 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)  creative  encoding of  THz information into acoustic waves, is my fourth pick.

   http://terahertztechnology.blogspot.com/2011/07/listening-to-terahertz-electromagnetic.html

    

5.  My last pick for top blog post, is one that envisioned would be my top pick for the year, when it first came out. It’s no secret I am an investor in Advanced Photonix, and toward the end of 2010, I was frankly giddy, with excitement, over it’s prospects to make a significant move into the commercial arena,  in a variety of quality control areas.  When news of the first commercial sale of THz to a private company making roofing materials was announced last January, I anticipated it was the first of many such announcements  that would be made  in 2011.  Unfortunately, I was wrong, and the actual integration of the T-Ray 4000, onto the factory floor took over 9 months.  In hindsight, my estimates regarding commercial acceptance ot THz, was naïve. Making laboratory equipment commercially hardened,  developing all of the software and hardware applications for use by a company seeking to save time and money, day after day, is  a complex and difficult process. Fabricating laboratory devices into a usable product to be used on a  factory line, is also clearly a  challenging endeavor . The fact that API has been working daily to overcome these obstacles since 2005, when it sold a T-Ray system to NASA  to be used in scanning the space shuttle tiles and foam for defects, has given them several years of hands-on experience. I’m optimistic that 2012 will be the year for API, that I had hoped 2011 would be.  Time will tell. http://terahertztechnology.blogspot.com/2011/01/advanced-photonix-inc-announces-first.html

So, thank you all again for reading  the blog. I have enjoyed learning about so many exciting things going on in the development of  Terahertz, and look forward to bringing you more current stories over the next year.  

Happy New Year to you all!!

Randy Knudson 
knudson.randy@gmail.com