Abstract-Terahertz compressive imaging with metamaterial spatial light modulators

• Claire M. Watts,
• David Shrekenhamer,
• John Montoya,
• Guy Lipworth,
• John Hunt,
• Timothy Sleasman,
• Sanjay Krishna,
• David R. Smith
• & Willie J. Padilla

• http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphoton.2014.139.html

Nature Photonics

 

(2014)

 

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2014.139

Received

 

14 January 2014 

Accepted

 

29 May 2014 

Published online

 

29 June 2014

Imaging at long wavelengths, for example at terahertz and millimetre-wave frequencies¹, is a highly sought-after goal of researchers^2, 3 because of the great potential for applications ranging from security screening⁴ and skin cancer detection⁵ to all-weather navigation⁶ and biodetection⁷. Here, we design, fabricate and demonstrate active metamaterials that function as real-time tunable, spectrally sensitive spatial masks for terahertz imaging with only a single-pixel detector. A modulation technique permits imaging with negative mask values, which is typically difficult to achieve with intensity-based components. We demonstrate compressive techniques allowing the acquisition of high-frame-rate, high-fidelity images. Our system is all solid-state with no moving parts, yields improved signal-to-noise ratios over standard raster-scanning techniques⁸, and uses a source orders of magnitude lower in power than conventional set-ups⁹. The demonstrated imaging system establishes a new path for terahertz imaging that is distinct from existing focal-plane-array-based cameras.