Current terahertz sources are large, multi-component systems that sometimes require complex vacuum systems, external pump lasers, and even cryogenic cooling. The unwieldy devices are heavy, expensive, and hard to transport, operate, and maintain.
Manijeh Razeghi at Northwestern University has developed a new type of security detection device that bypasses these issues. With the ability to detect explosives, chemical agents, and dangerous biological substances from safe distances, the device could make public spaces more secure than ever.
Director of Northwestern’s Center for Quantum Devices, Razeghi and her team have demonstrated a room temperature continuous wave, highly tunable, high-power terahertz source. Based on nonlinear mixing in quantum cascade lasers, the source can emit multi-milliwatts of power and has wide frequency coverage of one-to-five terahertz in pulsed mode operation.
No one would believe any of this was possible, even a couple years ago. This initial demonstration was exciting, and continuing developing will hopefully lead them to the new frontier in terahertz technology. Funded by the National Science Foundation, Department of Homeland Security, Naval Air Systems Command, and NASA, the research was published on March 25 in Nature Scientific Reports. This new research builds on Razeghi group’s many years of research with Northwestern’s Center for Quantum Devices, including the development of the first single mode room temperature terahertz laser in 2011.
