Terahertz Chemical Microscope for intelligent sensing and chemical analysis

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The terahertz (THz) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, lying above the frequencies of electronics (>0.1 THz) and below those of photonics (< 30 THz), represents the last frontier of the commercial applications of light. A multitude of applications are possible with these THz pulses. However, there are several characteristics of THz radiation that are holding back its widespread applications in industry. First, THz radiation is highly absorptive to polar liquids, such as water, thus making it difficult for applications involving most aqueous media. Secondly, THz absorption spectra are complicated even for pure materials, and thus conventional THz spectroscopy rapidly loses its effectiveness for identifying complex mixtures, which is what one frequently faces in the real world. In this Strategic project, we propose to work on a new method for THz sensing and imaging, which is based on a distinctly new concept for using THz radiation to monitor chemical reactions, named the THz Chemical Microscope (TCM). This technique uses THz emission (rather than absorption) from a specially fabricated sensing plate to detect various chemicals, and thus does not suffer from the various challenges that conventional THz technology experiences. An important advantage of the TCM is that sensing is done by a sensing film that bonds selectively to the chemical to be detected. Therefore, there is no need to decipher complicated THz spectra, and the TCM could even be used for chemicals that have very low THz absorption. By using different sensing films that bond selectively to different chemicals, the TCM could be used for sensing a wide variety of targets. The proposed Strategic project aims to transfer the TCM from bench side to business, while at the same time introducing new ideas from the Canadian side. We see high potential for TCM application in sectors with high socio-economic impact to Canada, such as the oil industry, biosensing, and pharmaceutics. The major goals are to improve and apply the TCM to develop unique on-line chemical detectors and intelligent sensors for these sectors.