Programmatic perspectives with technical examples for THz materials characterization

THz technology has a rich history of use in the field of interstellar molecule identification where a variety of molecule specific vibrational and rotational spectroscopic signatures exist and has been aggressively investigated for use in advanced radar applications because of the immediate improvement in object resolution obtained at higher frequencies. Traditionally, high power THz systems have relied upon millimeter wave sources and frequency multiplication techniques to achieve acceptable output power levels, while lower power, table top spectroscopic systems, have relied on broadband incoherent light sources. With the advent of high power lasers, advances in non-linear optics, and new material systems, a number of promising techniques for the generation, detection and manipulation of THz radiation are currently under development and are considered the enabling technologies behind a variety of advanced THz applications. This work presents a programmatic overview of current trends in THz technology of interest to a variety of government organizations. It focuses on those techniques currently under investigation for the generation and detection of THz fields motivated, for example, by such diverse applications as metamaterial spectroscopy, TH imaging, long standoff chem/bio detection and THz communications. Examples of these new techniques will be presented which in turn will motivate the need for the characterization of application specific active and passive THz components.