8.3 Why Terahertz Radiation Is so Important?
187
• Existence of superconducting energy gaps at THz frequencies.
• Oscillation of gaseous and solid-state plasmas.
• Emission of black-body radiation by matter above 10 K.
• Collision time between gas phase molecules at room temperature.
THz technology has a wide range of applications in diversified field such as
imaging, sensing, wireless communication, medical science, etc. (see Fig. 8.2). Terahertz waves have the power to penetrate a wide variety of non-conducting materials
such as polymers, paper, textiles, ceramics, composite materials, chemical powders.
They can also be used for
• Security applications (detection of explosives, drugs, threats and weapons).
• Non-destructive testing (electronics industry, corrosion analysis, agro-food
control).
• Medicine and biology diagnosis (e.g., pharmaceutical quality control, protein
spectroscopy, tissue characterization, breast tumours, skin cancer and burn depth
diagnosis).
• Airport scanning (better than X-rays as it is not harmful to human body).
• Computing and communication (intense THz pulses can induce an ultrafast
electric- or magnetic-field switching operation at tens of femtoseconds to
Fig. 8.2 Application of THz radiation
187
• Existence of superconducting energy gaps at THz frequencies.
• Oscillation of gaseous and solid-state plasmas.
• Emission of black-body radiation by matter above 10 K.
• Collision time between gas phase molecules at room temperature.
THz technology has a wide range of applications in diversified field such as
imaging, sensing, wireless communication, medical science, etc. (see Fig. 8.2). Terahertz waves have the power to penetrate a wide variety of non-conducting materials
such as polymers, paper, textiles, ceramics, composite materials, chemical powders.
They can also be used for
• Security applications (detection of explosives, drugs, threats and weapons).
• Non-destructive testing (electronics industry, corrosion analysis, agro-food
control).
• Medicine and biology diagnosis (e.g., pharmaceutical quality control, protein
spectroscopy, tissue characterization, breast tumours, skin cancer and burn depth
diagnosis).
• Airport scanning (better than X-rays as it is not harmful to human body).
• Computing and communication (intense THz pulses can induce an ultrafast
electric- or magnetic-field switching operation at tens of femtoseconds to
Fig. 8.2 Application of THz radiation