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Terahertz Photonics

Terahertz (THz, 1012 Hz) technology is based on light sources with frequencies much lower than of visible light, and slightly higher than of microwaves. Such light sources have a number of unique capabilities, for example that it can propagate through most insulating materials such as paper, plastic, cardboard, clothes etc., while being highly sensitive to the chemical composition of most crystalline materials. For this reason, the obvious applications of THz radiation are within detection of explosives, airport scanners and finding hidden layers in artwork. The THz region has often been referred to as the “THz gap”, however, with the rapid progression in the development of sources and detectors over the past 30 years, THz spectroscopy and imaging are today considered as well-established techniques.

The main research areas of the Terahertz Photonics Lab at Aarhus University are carrier dynamics in semiconducting materials, vibrational spectroscopy of crystalline materials and subwavelength THz imaging with near-field probes and emission microscopy. Read more under Research.