I Corps: Advanced Non-Destructive Testing using Terahertz Technology

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Terahertz (THz) technology has become an important tool that can benefit a wide range of industries interested in quality control and inspection of their products. Food processing, biomedical imaging, electronic device manufacturing and many other industries all share a common need: the ability to "see inside" products or samples without changing or damaging them. THz is a new technology which could allow companies to inspect and evaluate their products in a completely new, non-destructive way. The potential information customers could gain would help them to better determine sources of failure of their products throughout the manufacturing process. This would allow the customers to establish better quality control and increase product output and development, leading to reduced costs for the general public. Non-destructive testing was a $3.77B market in 2013 and expected to grow to $6.8B by 2020. This illustrates the importance companies place on implementing robust non-destructive testing in their product manufacturing and development. THz technologies unique characteristics could very well be developed into an industry standard to fill in the gaps where conventional testing methods fail.The goal of the proposed I-Corps project is to establish direct collaboration with potential industrial customers to determine how THz inspection could fit their needs. From the initial customer discovery interviews, a pool of companies showing interest in THz inspection of their products will be established. The team will then begin more in-depth communications with these companies, starting with the most promising, to work out the exact details of the type of information the company would be interested in and how THz could non-destructively extract this information. With these details established experiments and preliminary data analysis algorithms will be developed to demonstrate the concept. This will be performed utilizing the THz Imaging and Spectroscopy system available at the University of Arkansas. If applicable, companies will ship samples of their products to the team to be imaged and characterized. There are two ways to image a sample; THz reflection mode where the signal is emitted and detected at the same side of the sample. The second mode is THz transmission where the signal is transmitted through the sample and the emitter and detector are located at opposite sides of the sample. Finally, THz spectroscopy can also be used to characterize the materials of the samples and evaluate their properties. Additionally, important parameters such as repeatability and measurement sensitivity for each case will be quantified. The value of the information gained through THz inspection will be estimated for each potential customer. From this information it will be determined if the primary potential outcome of establishing a small business in the future based on "THz measurements-as-a-service" would be an economically feasible option to pursue. Another potential outcome is to increase the knowledge of potential research problems that THz technology can help solve through advancing the detectors and the imaging algorithms.