CUHK announces breakthrough in improvement of the acquisition rate of single-pixel terahertz cameras by a factor of 100 published in Nature Communications

Prof. MACPHERSON, Emma from the Department of Electronic Engineering at CUHK, the Department of Physics at University of Warwick and their research teams have reached a crucial milestone towards developing single-pixel terahertz radiation (T-ray) imaging technology. Their single-pixel T-ray camera reached 100 times faster acquisition than the previous state-of-the-art without adding any significant costs to the entire system or sacrificing the sub-picosecond temporal resolution needed for the most sought-after applications, potentially opening the opportunity for them to be used in non-invasive security and medical screening. The breakthrough has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

The research team led by Prof. MACPHERSON, Emma has previously developed several THz devices including THz modulators that make use of the total internal reflection geometry to achieve high modulation depths across a broadband frequency range and a new approach for amplitude and phase modulation exploiting the Brewster angle. They are also working to improve the resolution of single pixel THz imaging through signal processing approaches. Future work will focus on improving the signal-to-noise and optimizing the software needed for accurate medical diagnosis, with the ultimate goal being to use single-pixel THz imaging for in vivo cancer diagnosis.

For more details, please visit: https://www.cpr.cuhk.edu.hk/en/press_detail.php?id=3328 

Professor Emma Pickwell-Macpherson

Optical set up for single-pixel transmission imaging of object R