Mona Jarrahi: Development of terahertz devices opens doors for numerous applications

Terahertz applications will be covered at SPIE Photonics West.

http://spie.org/newsroom/jarrahi-video

Despite a wide range of potential applications, the terahertz field is not as well-known as the optical or microwave fields, explained University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), associate professor Mona Jarrahi during a recent tour of her lab.

As a result, she said, terahertz researchers find they have to do more explaining about the technology's potential when discussing how it might contribute to solutions to other researchers' problems.

The unique spectral signatures of many molecules when exposed to terahertz waves allow for identification of many chemicals and materials, so the technology lends itself to many potential applications.

The SPIE Senior Member has been working in the terahertz domain for nearly a decade and knows from firsthand experience why the field has struggled to find wide acceptance:

"The radiation power of sources is not very high, the detection sensitivity of detectors is not very high, and the available devices that show good performance often don't offer compact, low-cost platforms," Jarrahi said

Dr. Jarrahi and her team at UCLA began working on creating terahertz sources and detectors that could help bridge these gaps.

Based on accolades, their efforts seem to be working. Jarrahi has earned numerous awards for her research, including a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2014. Just last year, she was one of five inaugural Moore Inventor Fellows named by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

"We are trying to really pinpoint major challenges that we have on the device side." Jarrahi said. At the same time, "whenever we come up with better device performance, that motivates us to look at potential applications that were stopped up to this point because of lack of those functionalities. So we are also looking at a lot of applications."

Focusing on just one application would be a challenge for the lab, which collaborates on work ranging from cancer detection to planetary gas sensing and other diverse areas.

"We plan to continue expanding on our developments in developing better terahertz sources and detectors," Jarrahi said. "A technique that we use employing metallic nanostructures to enhance light-matter interaction to offer better efficiencies has a lot of potential. So far we have had technical challenges in terms of fabricating these kinds of structures, so there is a lot of room to improve functionalities of these devices.

"Going specifically to the terahertz domain was mainly motivated because of the challenges," Jarrahi continued. "I was interested in challenging projects, hard problems. This is an excellent field with a lot of unsolved problems and challenges."

Jarrahi is an author in three plasmonics technology applications presentations at SPIE Photonics West beginning later this month in San Francisco:

• Plasmonics-enhanced large-area terahertz detectors
• Large dynamic range terahertz spectrometers based on plasmonic photomixers
• Plasmonics-enhanced broadband graphene photodetector

Use of Terahertz imaging in the pharmaceutical industry talk at this year’s Photonics West by TeraView

http://www.news-medical.net/news/20170130/Use-of-Terahertz-imaging-in-the-pharmaceutical-industry-talk-at-this-yeare28099s-Photonics-West-by-TeraView.aspx

TeraView, the pioneer and leader in terahertz technology and solutions is pleased to announce that Dr Phil Taday, Head of Applications at TeraView, will be giving an invited talk on the use of Terahertz imaging in the pharmaceutical industry at this year’s Photonics West event to be held at The Moscone Center, San Francisco, USA.

TeraView’s Dr Philip Taday will be presenting an invited paper at the event entitled ‘Using terahertz-pulsed imaging (TPI) to study osmotic tablets’. The paper is the result of TeraView’s long term relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, and highlights TeraView’s commitment in providing solutions to the industry.

“We are excited to invite TeraView to present at this year’s meeting. It is great to see terahertz technology solving real-world problems for the pharmaceutical industry and we look forward to hearing the talk” said Dr. Frank Ellrich, Group Manager Optical Terahertz Measurement Techniques, Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM. Dr Ellrich is organizing a session at this year’s conference on “Thickness Measurements using Terahertz Technologies”

TeraView’s Dr Philip Taday commented “The paper is the result of a long term collaboration between TeraView and a major pharmaceutical customer. I am very excited by the continuing integration of TeraView within the pharmaceutical industry and the successful application of terahertz technology in this field”. Dr Taday is the author on over a hundred peer-viewed papers, with over fifty in the area of the application of terahertz technology.

We are very proud of TeraView’s achievements in working closely with the pharmaceutical industry, this further marks our position as a leader in providing technology to a diverse customer base. Notably, it highlights our ability to put into work solutions for our customers, and to support their current and future requirements.”

Professor Sir Michael Pepper, TeraView’s Chief Scientific Director

TeraView continues to offer the pharmaceutical industry both analytical instrumentation and also a fee-for-service facility. The later allowing the industry to access TeraView’s extensive applications knowledge, intellectual property and know-how.

About Terahertz

Terahertz light lies between infra red and microwaves, and as such has unique properties which enables it to pass through objects and to transmit images and compositional (spectroscopic) information that is ordinarily hidden. Terahertz is non destructive, safe and fast, making it the ideal inspection and imaging modality for many applications across a range of industries.

TeraView has demonstrated the potential of terahertz technology in a number of applications including the detection of hidden weapons and explosives in security screening, monitoring the quality of pharmaceutical drugs, high value coatings used in automotive and other industries, as well as medical imaging of cancer.

About TeraView

TeraView is the world’s first and leading company solely focused upon the application of terahertz light to provide solutions to customer issues. A spin out from the Toshiba Corporation and Cambridge University, TeraView has developed its proprietary technology across a number of markets. These include fault analysis and quality assurance for semiconductor chips used in mobile computing and communications, as well as non destructive inspection of high value coatings used in the automotive, pharmaceutical, food and solar industries.

With the largest number of systems in the field, as well as applications know-how made available to customers via a team of dedicated scientists using intellectual property and knowledge in peer-reviewed scientific publications, TeraView is uniquely placed to deliver the business benefits of terahertz to customers. Headquartered in Cambridge UK, sales and customer support are available throughout the Far East, North America and Europe either directly or through a network of distributors.

TOPTICA at Photonics West 2017: Finest lasers at exotic wavelengths for biophotonics, material inspection and quantum optics

From January 28th to February 2nd, TOPTICA Photonics will exhibit their latest innovations in laser technology in the San Francisco Moscone Center at the BiOS (booth 8709) and Photonics West (booth 923) exhibitions.

http://connect.physicsworld.com/optics-and-lasers/toptica-at-photonics-west-2017-finest-lasers-at-exotic-wavelengths-for-biophotonics-material-inspection-and-quantum-optics/2004265.article

From January 28th to February 2nd, TOPTICA Photonics will exhibit their latest innovations in laser technology in the San Francisco Moscone Center at the BiOS (booth 8709) and Photonics West (booth 923) exhibitions. These lasers are excellent light sources for a variety of applications in biophotonics, materials metrology and quantum optics.

For biophotonics, a specialized multi-laser engine, as well as new femtosecond fiber lasers are available. In particular for microscopy, the completely new iChrome CLE is an ideal tool. This compact and economic multi-laser engine provides up to 20 mW output power at 405, 488, 561 and 640 nm each. It is the third member of TOPTICA’s “iChrome” product line, which includes the cost-effective iChrome CLE with four pre-defined colors, the power-champion iChrome MLE with four selectable colors, as well as the flexible iChrome SLE that integrates up to 8 exchangeable colors. All iChrome systems feature a unified user interface, unique modulation skills and COOLAC, TOPTICA’s proprietary and fully automated beam alignment algorithm.

The new FemtoFiber dichro midIR is ideally suited for mid-infrared spectroscopy, as well as near-field studies. It provides pulses with a broadband mid-infrared spectrum ranging from 5 to 15 μm at an 80 MHz repetition rate and more than 0.5 mW output power. This spectrum is generated via DFG between the fundamental beam and a frequency shifted beam, both originating from an Er-doped fiber oscillator. The FemtoFiber dichro midIR is a unique tool for the chemical analysis of materials with nanoscale resolution accuracy, e.g. in near-field spectroscopy systems.

The FemtoFiber ultra 1050 is the most recent addition to TOPTICA’s third generation of ultrafast fiber lasers. It provides powerful pulses centered at 1050 nm with > 5 W average power and 80 MHz repetition rate. The pulse duration of less than 120 fs is one of the shortest currently available on the market at this wavelength. The FemtoFiber ultra 1050 is ideally suited for multiphoton (SHG) microscopy, supercontinuum generation, material processing, as well as OPCPA or amplifier seeding.

Advanced materials metrology is possible with TOPTICA’s completely new TopWave 266 laser system. This industrial-grade UV cw-laser provides 150 mW power at a 266 nm wavelength. It stands out due to excellent power stability, low noise and an extended lifetime that is realized with a digital control architecture and an optimized, completely sealed doubling cavity. The TopWave 266 lends itself to demanding applications like semicon inspection, optical lithography and Raman spectroscopy/microscopy.

Other material characterization techniques like non-destructive testing, plastic inspection or layer thickness measurements are feasible with TOPTICA’s unique terahertz systems. The time-domain terahertz platform TeraFlash achieves an unsurpassed peak dynamic range of up to 100 dB at a 6 THz bandwidth. In addition, the frequency-domain terahertz platform TeraScan convinces with a high resolution better than 10 MHz and a dynamic range of 100 dB.

Sophisticated experiments in quantum optics often require advanced lasers with state of the art specifications and highest reliability. TOPTICA provides unique solutions that fulfill these requirements. For example, the new DLC DFB pro laser systems combine the ease-of-use and ruggedness of distributed feedback diodes with the outstanding features of the TOPTICA’s DLC pro driver. With the digital controller, this system is ideal for spectroscopic applications, since it enables zooming in onto a signature of interest, and permits frequency locking with just a few touchscreen gestures. In addition, a new “wide-scan” option enables large scan ranges attainable with thermally tuned DFB diodes (more than 1000 GHz at selected near-infrared wavelengths).

Ultrawide mode-hop-free wavelength tuning is possible with TOPTICA’s CTL. It is now available at new central wavelengths: 1050, 1320 and 1470 nm (also available: 950, 1500 and 1550 nm). At these wavelengths, it supports guaranteed mode-hop-free wavelength tuning of up to 110 nm with up to 80 mW output power. The CTL is ideal for spectroscopy, quantum dot or microcavity measurements, as well as component testing.

Experiments that require a reliable reference for optical frequencies like atomic clocks, high-resolution spectroscopy or CEP-stable amplifier seeding can be realized with TOPTICA’s DFC CORE. This low-noise frequency comb is based on difference frequency generation which results in an unprecedented high phase stability of < 32 mrad in a spectral interferometry measurement. The DFC CORE is available with up to 8 outputs at 1560 nm that can be converted to any desired wavelength in the range of 420 – 2200 nm using extensions. This way, TOPTICA is able to provide complete stabilized laser systems including the DFC CORE, wavelength extensions, beat units, stabilization electronics, wavelength meters, counters and diode lasers.

Come to TOPTICA’s booth at BiOS (booth #8709) or Photonics West (booth #923) to learn more about these laser systems and to speak to TOPTICA’s experienced team!

For further information click here

Development of terahertz devices opens doors for numerous applications

Terahertz applications will be covered at SPIE Photonics West.

12 January 2017, SPIE Newsroom. DOI: 10.1117/2.3201701.03

http://spie.org/newsroom/jarrahi-video

Despite a wide range of potential applications, the terahertz field is not as well-known as the optical or microwave fields, explained University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), associate professor Mona Jarrahi during a recent tour of her lab.

As a result, she said, terahertz researchers find they have to do more explaining about the technology's potential when discussing how it might contribute to solutions to other researchers' problems.

The unique spectral signatures of many molecules when exposed to terahertz waves allow for identification of many chemicals and materials, so the technology lends itself to many potential applications.

The SPIE Senior Member has been working in the terahertz domain for nearly a decade and knows from firsthand experience why the field has struggled to find wide acceptance:

"The radiation power of sources is not very high, the detection sensitivity of detectors is not very high, and the available devices that show good performance often don't offer compact, low-cost platforms," Jarrahi said

Dr. Jarrahi and her team at UCLA began working on creating terahertz sources and detectors that could help bridge these gaps.

Based on accolades, their efforts seem to be working. Jarrahi has earned numerous awards for her research, including a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2014. Just last year, she was one of five inaugural Moore Inventor Fellows named by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

"We are trying to really pinpoint major challenges that we have on the device side." Jarrahi said. At the same time, "whenever we come up with better device performance, that motivates us to look at potential applications that were stopped up to this point because of lack of those functionalities. So we are also looking at a lot of applications."

Focusing on just one application would be a challenge for the lab, which collaborates on work ranging from cancer detection to planetary gas sensing and other diverse areas.

"We plan to continue expanding on our developments in developing better terahertz sources and detectors," Jarrahi said. "A technique that we use employing metallic nanostructures to enhance light-matter interaction to offer better efficiencies has a lot of potential. So far we have had technical challenges in terms of fabricating these kinds of structures, so there is a lot of room to improve functionalities of these devices.

"Going specifically to the terahertz domain was mainly motivated because of the challenges," Jarrahi continued. "I was interested in challenging projects, hard problems. This is an excellent field with a lot of unsolved problems and challenges."

Jarrahi is an author in three plasmonics technology applications presentations at SPIE Photonics West beginning later this month in San Francisco:

• Plasmonics-enhanced large-area terahertz detectors
• Large dynamic range terahertz spectrometers based on plasmonic photomixers
• Plasmonics-enhanced broadband graphene photodetector