Terahertz sensing system and method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9200959-B2
Application number	US-201313945542-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 18, 2013
Priority date	Jan 29, 2010
Publication date	Dec 1, 2015
Grant date	Dec 1, 2015

Abstract

Disclosed herein are a system and corresponding method for sensing terahertz radiation. The system collects terahertz radiation scattered from a target and upconverts the collected radiation to optical frequencies. A frequency-domain spectrometer senses spectral components of the upconverted signal in parallel to produce a spectroscopic measurement of the entire band of interest in a single shot. Because the sensing system can do single-shot measurements, it can sense moving targets, unlike sensing systems that use serial detection, which can only be used to sense stationary objects. As a result, the sensing systems and methods disclosed herein may be used for real-time imaging, including detection of concealed weapons, medical imaging, and hyperspectral imaging.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system for sensing a signal beam from a sample at a first frequency, the system comprising:
a difference-frequency generator to mix the signal beam with an optical pump beam so as to produce an optical idler beam at a second frequency equal to a difference between the first frequency and a frequency of the optical pump beam;
a filter, in optical communication with the difference-frequency generator, to at least partially attenuate and/or reflect t…

Assignees

• Khan Mohammad J
• Kaushik Sumanth
• Chen Jerry C
• Massachusetts Inst Technology

Inventors

• Khan Mohammad J
• Kaushik Sumanth
• Chen Jerry C

Classifications

• G01J3/42 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G01N2021/1793

  Physics · mapped topic

• G01N21/3581 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic