Terahertz Chemical Microscope for intelligent sensing and chemical analysis

电磁频谱的太赫兹(THz)部分高于电子学的频率(&gt；0.1太赫兹)，低于光子学的频率(&lt；30太赫兹)，代表了光商业应用的最后前沿。利用这些太赫兹脉冲可以实现多种应用。然而，太赫兹辐射的几个特点阻碍了其在工业上的广泛应用。首先，太赫兹辐射对水等极性液体具有很强的吸收能力，因此很难应用于大多数含水介质。其次，即使对于纯物质，太赫兹吸收光谱也很复杂，因此传统的太赫兹光谱很快就失去了识别复杂混合物的有效性，这是人们在现实世界中经常面临的问题。 在这一战略项目中，我们提出了一种新的太赫兹传感和成像方法，该方法基于一种全新的概念，即太赫兹辐射监测化学反应，称为太赫兹化学显微镜。这项技术使用专门制造的感应板发出的太赫兹辐射(而不是吸收)来检测各种化学物质，因此不会受到传统太赫兹技术所面临的各种挑战的影响。中药的一个重要优势是，传感是通过感应膜选择性地结合到被检测的化学物质上来完成的。因此，不需要破译复杂的太赫兹光谱，甚至可以用于太赫兹吸收非常低的化学物质。通过使用不同的感应膜，选择性地结合到不同的化学物质上，中药可以用于传感各种各样的目标。拟议的战略项目旨在将中医从板凳端转移到企业，同时引入加拿大方面的新想法。我们看到中医药在石油工业、生物传感和制药等对加拿大社会经济影响较大的行业应用的潜力很大。主要目标是改进和应用中医药，为这些部门开发独特的在线化学探测器和智能传感器。

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.