Advanced Terahertz Imaging Systems based on Plasmonic Antenna Arrays

基于等离子体天线阵列的先进太赫兹成像系统

• 批准号: 1609954
• 负责人: Mona Jarrahi
• 金额: $ 27万
• 依托单位: University of California-Los Angeles
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2020-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1609954&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Advanced; Terahertz; Imaging; Systems; based

Terahertz waves are very attractive for medical imaging applications since they do not pose an ionization hazard for human tissue, due to their very low energy compared to shorter wavelength waves often used in medical imaging systems. Moreover, terahertz waves experience less scattering from biological tissue compared to optical waves due to their longer wavelengths making it possible to see deeper into different biological tissue types. Additionally, several absorption lines of water lie in the terahertz frequency spectrum, making terahertz waves very powerful means for distinguishing between tissues with different hydration levels that is often useful for diagnostics purposes. The combination of these attractive attributes of terahertz waves has created a great deal of interest in terahertz imaging systems and has been utilized for various medical imaging and diagnostics applications. In spite of a significant advancement in terahertz imaging systems over recent years, existing terahertz imaging systems have constraints in their size, image acquisition time, image resolution, and detectable depth, which has limited the scope of their potential use for various medical imaging and diagnostics applications. The research component of this program will address some of the physical limitations of existing terahertz imaging systems by developing a high-performance pulsed terahertz imaging system with potential application in in-vivo imaging and diagnostics applications. Additionally, this program will integrate research with education and outreach activities by developing new courses, recruitment and involvement of undergraduate students, and organizing high-school seminars. The objective of this research is to develop a new generation of non-contact terahertz imaging systems that offer significantly larger detectable depths and faster image acquisition rates compared to existing terahertz imaging technologies. For this purpose, a novel pulsed terahertz imaging system based on a two-dimensional array of large area plasmonic photoconductive terahertz sources and detectors compatible with a commercial endoscope will be implemented and experimentally demonstrated. The use of large area plasmonic photoconductive sources and detectors will enhance the output power of terahertz sources, detection sensitivity of terahertz detectors, and signal-to-noise ratio, thus enabling significantly larger detectable depths for the imaging system. The proposed work presents a new perspective on the potential use of terahertz technology for various medical diagnostics applications that are not currently possible due to the shallow detectable depth and bulky nature of existing terahertz imaging systems. The proposed theoretical investigation will provide a detailed understanding of the fundamental physical limitations of plasmonic terahertz source/detector operations, while the experimental effort will develop appropriate device fabrication and packaging processes compatible with endoscopy systems.

Terahertz波对医学成像应用非常有吸引力，因为与经常在医学成像系统中经常使用的波长波相比，它们的能量非常低，因此它们不会对人体组织构成电离危险。此外，由于其较长的波长，Terahertz波的经历与光波相比，从生物组织中散射较少，因此可以更深入地看到不同的生物组织类型。此外，在Terahertz频谱中，几种吸收管道的吸收线使Terahertz波具有非常强大的手段，以区分与诊断目的通常有用的水合水平不同的组织。 Terahertz Waves的这些有吸引力的属性的结合对Terahertz成像系统产生了极大的兴趣，并已用于各种医学成像和诊​​断应用。尽管近年来Terahertz成像系统取得了重大进步，但现有的Terahertz成像系统的大小，图像采集时间，图像分辨率和可检测的深度限制了其在各种医学成像和诊​​断应用中的潜在用途的范围。该程序的研究组成部分将通过开发具有潜在的Vivo成像和诊断应用中潜在应用的高性能脉冲Terahertz成像系统来解决现有Terahertz成像系统的某些物理局限性。此外，该计划将通过开发新课程，招募和本科生的参与以及组织高中研讨会来将研究与教育和外展活动融为一体。这项研究的目的是开发新一代的非接触式Terahertz成像系统，与现有的Terahertz成像技术相比，可提供更大的可检测深度和更快的图像采集率。为此，将实施并实现与商业内窥镜兼容的大面积光电传统的Terahertz源的二维脉冲Terahertz成像系统。大面积的等离子光电传入源和检测器的使用将增强Terahertz源的输出功率，Terahertz检测器的检测灵敏度以及信噪比的比率，从而为成像系统提供了明显更大的可检测深度。拟议的工作介绍了关于Terahertz技术在各种医学诊断应用中的潜在使用的新观点，这些应用程序由于现有Terahertz Imaging Systems的可检测深度和庞大性而无法使用。提出的理论研究将详细了解等离子Terahertz源/检测器操作的基本物理局限性，而实验性工作将开发适当的设备制造和与内窥镜系统兼容的包装过程。