In this work, the optical properties of several inorganic contaminants and organic pollutants in soil were characterized by using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy, such as heavy metals and microplastics. The main purpose of the present investigation is to provide a new technical approach for assessing the degree of soil pollutions and remediation. Terahertz wave is a kind of non-ionizing radiation with unique features located between microwave and infrared band. It has been widely utilized in many fields, such as the identification of heavy metals in organic pollutants heptachlor, DDT and inorganic pollutants in environmental science. Terahertz spectrum of soil samples subjected to different drying time was measured at first to explore the duration of moisture effects elimination. Based on the processing and analysis of the time-domain signal, the spectral absorption of wide band pulsed terahertz wave can be modulated by soil, hexavalent chromium and microplastics. The positive experimental results show that the absorption coefficient and refractive index of various samples corresponding to different types and proportion blends. Meanwhile, different samples have various absorption peaks in the terahertz region, which can be used to distinguish different contaminants. At the same time, the content of hexavalent chromium and the number of microplastics in the soil can be judged according to the degree of absorption. The experimental verification confirms that terahertz spectroscopy is a feasible, effective and promising method for the detection of soil pollutants with broad application prospects.
Due to the development of infrared holography, an efficient infrared imaging method with a large field of view and high resolution is urgently needed. Because of the limitation of detector size, the traditional holographic imaging method can not achieve large area hologram acquisition. In this paper, the infrared in-line digital holography system is presented with a light source of 1550 nm laser. A large field of view and high-resolution holographic imaging is realized via scanning. The sample is moved in X and Y directions by using a two-dimensional electric translation table. When the sample is photographed, the S-type scanning method is adopted to take several holograms. Then the hologram is reconstructed iteratively by MATLAB software, and then all holograms are spliced in order. The infrared digital holograms of simple objects and mineral slices were taken by the imaging system. The experimental results show that scanning infrared digital holography can effectively achieve high-resolution imaging with a large field of view. It can be used in large-scale scene imaging in the future and has good prospects for development in the fields of medicine, petroleum geological exploration and so on.
The mineral composition of kaolin is mainly composed of kaolinite, which was widely used in the production of ceramics and refractory materials. In this paper, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy is used to study the optical properties of kaolinite group clay minerals and the absorption coefficient and refractive index of calcined kaolin, washed kaolin and metakaolin were characterized in the terahertz band. The experimental results show that when the type, composition proportion and particle size of kaolin changed, the time-domain signal, absorption coefficient and refractive index of the terahertz wave will show regular changes. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, the difference which is kaolin of different types, different particle sizes and different concentrations can be effectively distinguished. The research results show that the time-domain terahertz spectroscopy technology can be effectively applied to the mineral component analysis and has important significance in geoscience research.
The design and algorithm research of the digital holographic imaging system in the near infrared band is carried out in this paper, which is based on the infrared band laser and the planar array detector. We built a set of a near infrared coaxial digital holographic imaging system based on the 1550 nm wavelength distributed feedback laser, and the system was calibrated with the resolution plate. At the same time, the compressed sensing algorithm is used to reconstruct the holograms of the resolution plate and other objects, which effectively inhibits the influence of noise. It proves that infrared digital holographic imaging technology is a new potential phase-contrast imaging method.
Montmorillonite plays an important role in mineral research, pharmaceutical research and treatment of polluted wastewater. The purpose of this study is to detect different porosity, thickness, calcined products of montmorillonite and to distinguish different types of montmorillonite by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy combining with other conventional analytical methods. In addition, optical parameters such as absorption coefficient, phase difference and refractive index can significantly characterize different porosity, thickness and calcination temperature. Therefore, it is of great significance to use terahertz time-domain spectroscopy for nondestructive testing of montmorillonite.
Using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) to characterize the shale is significant for geological research. This paper adopts the transmission THz-TDS system which is composed of a femtosecond laser, terahertz radiation generation device, corresponding detection device, and time delay control system. It can also further explore the application potential of THz-TDS in rock mineralogy. The method of shale powder tablet is used to make sample suitable for test and confirm the appropriate proportion that the shale mixed with PTFE under the condition of THz-TDS. Matlab software is used to extract the phase shift and amplitude curve of the sample, and then the refractive index and absorption coefficient of the sample are extracted from the time domain data. In addition, it is feasible to use the characteristic peak in the absorption coefficient to identify minerals in similar shales. The mineral composition of shales which cannot be directly determined by THz-TDS is determined by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The experimental results show that the refractive index can be used to distinguish two kinds of similar black shales: oil shale which is rich in organic matter and ordinary shale. THz-TDS can be used as a supplement to traditional testing methods, which provide a new method for the study of the rock mineralogical characteristics of shale and make the characterization system of shale more perfect.
The characteristics of Calamines has been firstly analyzed by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. Results show that the main composition of the Calamine is calcite. And the terahertz absorption much relates with the particle size, sample thickness, as well as the proportion of polytetrafluorethylene mixed in the sample.
As a traditional mineral medicine, Lapis Chloriti has attracted much attentions in recent years. Based on the components determined by the X-ray diffraction, the Lapis Chloriti were characterized by the terahertz time domain spectroscopy. Results show that the absorption of sample has positive correlation with concentration. The more mass with Lapis Chloriti, the more absorption. And the absorption becomes more intense with the particle size increasing. In addition, the absorption influenced by other factors are also compared and discussed.
A guided-mode resonance(GMR) filter which can work at multiple tunable frequencies is designed and obtained by using a readily available photonic crystal. The photonic crystal consists of several layers of dielectric rods with different radii in each layer. When light is incident upon this photonic crystal at a small incident angle, guided mode resonance in each rod layer will be excited. At the resonant frequencies, nearly 100% narrow reflection peaks with zero reflection sidebands, an excellent GRM filter, can be obtained. In addition, the resonant frequency of each layer is closely related to the radius of the rod and all the resonances of the whole structure almost don't interact with each other. Therefore, by adjusting the radii of the rods in each layer, the operating frequencies of the filter can be freely tuned both individually and simultaneously, a perfect tunable multichannel GMR photonic crystal filter is obtained. This optical device has apparent advantages, simple structure, small and compact size, easy fabrication and integration. Therefore, it has great application potential in modern optical network.
Pseudo-diffusive phenomenon is an abnormal transmission phenomenon both in electric system and photonic system which hold conical dispersion relations in their band structures. The phenomenon is: near a Dirac point, the transmittance of the system is inversely proportional to the sample’s thickness as if the material was a disordered medium. It is known that in photonic system, Dirac cones can be classified into three different types, which are standard single Dirac cone, double Dirac cones and Dirac-like cone. Some of them can be found either at the center and the corners of the first Brillouin zone. So it raises the questions that: Do the types of the Dirac cones affect the pseudo-diffusive phenomenon? And further, is there any connection between the pseudo-diffusive phenomenon and the locations of the Dirac cones? Through theoretical investigation, we found that the locations of the Dirac cones play a critical role on the pseudo-diffusive phenomenon. If the Dirac cone is located in the center of the Brillouin zone, the pseudo-diffusive phenomenon doesn't exist at the Dirac frequency. Besides, the shapes of the Dirac cones also affect the pseudo-diffusive phenomenon. The non-conical dispersion band of the Dirac-like cone makes the transmission quite different from linear decrease with the increase of the thickness.
A key requirement to put terahertz (THz) imaging systems into applications is high resolution. Based on a self-developed THz quantum cascade laser (QCL), we demonstrate a THz inline digital holography imaging system with high lateral resolution. In our case, the lateral resolution of this holography imaging system is pushed to about 70 μm, which is close to the intrinsic resolution limit of this system. To the best of our knowledge, this is much smaller than what has been reported up to now. This is attributed to a series of improvements, such as shortening the QCL wavelength, increasing Nx and Ny by the synthetic aperture method, smoothing the source beam profile, and diminishing vibration due to the cryorefrigeration device. This kind of holography system with a resolution smaller than 100 μm opens the door for many imaging experiments. It will turn the THz imaging systems into applications.
Terahertz waves of which frequency spans from 0.1 to 10 THz bridge the gap between the infrared spectrum and microwaves. Owing to the special features of terahertz wave, such as penetrability and non-ionizing, terahertz imaging technique is a very significant and important method for inspections and detections. Digital holography can reconstruct the amplitude and phase distributions of a sample without scanning and it already has many successful applications in the area of visible and infrared light. The terahertz in-line digital holographic multi-plane imaging system which is presented in this paper is the combination of a continuous-wave terahertz source and the in-line scheme of digital holography. In order to observe a three dimensional (3D) shape sample only a portion of which appears in good focus, the autofocusing algorithm is brought to the data process. The synthetic aperture method is also applied to provide the high resolution imaging effect in the terahertz waveband. Both intrinsic twin images and defocused objective images confuse the quality of the image in an individual reconstructed plane. In order to solve this issue, phase retrieval iteration algorithm is used for the reconstruction. In addition, the reconstructed amplitude image in each plane multiplies the mask of which the threshold depends on the values of the autofocusing curve. A sample with simple artificial structure is observed which verifies that the present method is an authentic tool to acquire the multi-plane information of a target in terahertz waves. It can expect a wide application in terahertz defect detecting, terahertz medical inspection and other important areas in the future.
Terahertz frequency range spans from 0.1 to 10 THz. Terahertz radiation can penetrate nonpolar materials and nonmetallic materials, such as plastics, wood, and clothes. Then the feature makes the terahertz imaging have important research value. Terahertz computed tomography makes use of the penetrability of terahertz radiation and obtains three-dimensional object projection data. In the paper, continuous-wave terahertz computed tomography with a pyroelectric array detectoris presented. Compared with scanning terahertz computed tomography, a pyroelectric array detector can obtain a large number of projection data in a short time, as the acquisition mode of the array pyroelectric detector omit the projection process on the vertical and horizontal direction. With the two-dimensional cross-sectional images of the object are obtained by the filtered back projection algorithm. The two side distance of the straw wall account for 80 pixels, so it multiplied by the pixel size is equal to the diameter of the straw about 6.4 mm. Compared with the actual diameter of the straw, the relative error is 6%. In order to reconstruct the three-dimensional internal structure image of the straw, the y direction range from 70 to 150 are selected on the array pyroelectric detector and are reconstructed by the filtered back projection algorithm. As the pixel size is 80 μm, the height of three-dimensional internal structure image of the straw is 6.48 mm. The presented system can rapidly reconstruct the three-dimensional object by using a pyroelectric array detector and explores the feasibility of on non-destructive evaluation and security testing.
Terahertz (THz) continuous-wave digital holography is an advanced interference imaging technique that can reconstruct quantitative distributions of amplitude and phase of the sample in real time with high resolution. In this paper, a reflective off-axis holographic system is presented. A Gaussian fitting method is applied to enhance the hologram contrast and Laplacian of Gaussian filter is used to obtain the reconstructed distance automatically. Furthermore, spectrum filtering method and angular spectrum algorithm are used to obtain the complex amplitude of the one-yuan chinese metal coin. The results confirm the prospective application of terahertz digital holography in the surface morphology for reflective samples.
Terahertz computed tomography makes use of the penetrability of terahertz radiation and obtains three-dimensional (3-D) object projection data. Continuous-wave terahertz digital holographic tomography with a pyroelectric array detector is presented. Compared with scanning terahertz computed tomography, a pyroelectric array detector can obtain a large quantity of projection data in a short time. To obtain a 3-D image, in-line digital holograms of the object are recorded from various directions and reconstructed to obtain two-dimensional (2-D) projection data; then 2-D cross-sectional images and 3-D images of the internal structure of the object are obtained by the filtered back projection algorithm. The presented system can rapidly reconstruct the 3-D object and reveals the internal 3-D structure of the object. A 3-D reconstruction of a polyethylene straw is presented with a 6% error in retrieved diameter.
In this paper, the simulation experiments both of Abbe-Porter spatial filtering and of optical processing of image addition and subtraction with a grating filter are designed and performed. We realize the design and operation of optical information processing simulation experiments based on information optics theory and the experimental principle by using MATLAB programing language. The spatial filtering of Fourier spectrum, one of the main concepts in information optics, is intuitively described via the simulation experiments, and the experiment process is demonstrated step by step. The results show that the simulation experiments are really helpful for the filter's design and the image processing. These developed virtual experiments have been used in experimental teaching for undergraduate students majored in optics or optical engineering, which effectively assist students to understand concept and principle of optical information processing.
The terahertz (THz) imaging is an advanced technique on the basis of the unique characteristics of terahertz radiation. Due
to its noncontact, non-invasive and high-resolution capabilities, it has already shown great application prospects in
biomedical observation, sample measurement, and quality control. The continuous-wave terahertz in-line digital
holography is a combination of terahertz technology and in-line digital holography of which the source is a
continuous-wave terahertz laser. Over the past decade, many researchers used different terahertz sources and detectors to
undertake experiments. In this paper, the pre-process of the hologram is accomplished after the holograms’ recording
process because of the negative pixels in the pyroelectric detector and the air vibration caused by the chopper inside the
camera. To improve the quality of images, the phase retrieval algorithm is applied to eliminate the twin images. In the
experiment, the pin which terahertz wave can’t penetrate and the TPX slice carved letters “THz” are chosen for the samples.
The amplitude and phase images of samples are obtained and the twin image and noise in the reconstructed images are
suppressed. The results validate the feasibility of the terahertz in-line digital holographic imaging technique. This work
also shows the terahertz in-line digital holography technique’s prospects in materials science and biological samples’
detection.
We propose and experimentally demonstrate a shift-multiplexing complex spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (shift-multiplexing CSD-OCT) method, in which the maximum detection depth of SD-OCT can be greatly extended by incorporating the shift-multiplexing of detection positions with CSD-OCT. The tomographic imaging with twofold or threefold microscopic slides as the target sample is performed. The experimental results show that the tomographic imaging with more uniform brightness and clarity for the different depth regions in a thick sample can be achieved by the shift-multiplexing CSD-OCT system. In particular, even while the sample’s depth is beyond the maximum imaging depth of CSD-OCT system, the tomographic imaging of this sample can still be realized by using the shift-multiplexing CSD-OCT method without the need for any replacement of the equipment, such as high spectral capacity grating or high resolution of CCD. The shift-multiplexing CSD-OCT system can perform the imaging with the optimization and less reduction of sensitivity for the deeper detection position in the sample.
Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) was successfully applied in the microstructure imaging of biological tissue
after being proposed firstly in 1991 by the researchers of MIT. As a novel optical imaging technology, it mainly uses
interference principles to achieve noninvasive and high resolution visualization of samples. OCT works analogously to
an ultrasound scanner, the major difference is that ultrasound pulses are replaced by broadband light. According to
whether need for mechanical axial scan in the depth direction, it can be classified into the time-domain OCT (TD-OCT)
and frequency-domain OCT (FD-OCT). The FD-OCT system overmatches the TD-OCT in imaging speed because of its
depth collection advantage. But in the reconstructive image of FD-OCT detection, the complex-conjugate ambiguity will
seriously deteriorate the imaging effect of tomogram. So the technique of removing the complex-conjugate image is
employed that is called complex FD-OCT. The complex FD-OCT has widely application in many fields, especially in
the refractive index measurement. The refractive index is an important parameter characterizing light propagation in the
medium. In the paper, we present a method to measure the average refractive index of the sample with substrate
calibration by using complex FD-OCT method, in which we can calculate it without depending on the parameters of
system such as spectral width of light source. Due to the measurement of average refractive index relative to the actual
thickness and optical length, it is necessary to obtain them of the sample experimentally. The complex FD-OCT method
can easily achieved the optical length via measuring the positions of the sample’s front and rear surfaces. In the
experiment, the coverslip (the borosilicate glass) is chosen as the sample and the calibration substrate. We make use of
the substrate to load the sample on it, and then the tomogram of the sample can be achieved by means of OCT’s lateral
scan in the edge of the sample and complex FD-OCT method. According to the experimental results, we can acquire the
sample’s tomographic information and position of the substrate. The ratio of actual thickness and optical length can be
indirectly calculated out with the pixel number obtained by analyzing the image data. So with only one time scan, we can
complete the measurement of average refractive index of the sample without aid of other instruments.
KEYWORDS: Spherical lenses, Planets, Optical spheres, Solar cells, Control systems, Space robots, Solar energy, Metals, Environmental sensing, Prototyping
In this paper, a deformable spherical planet exploration robot has been introduced to achieve the task of environmental detection in outer space or extreme conditions. The robot imitates the morphology structure and motion mechanism of tumbleweeds. The robot is wind-driven. It consists of an axle, a spherical steel skeleton and twelve airbags. The axle is designed as two parts. The robot contracts by contracting the two-part axle. The spherical robot installs solar panels to provide energy for its control system.
The three-step or many steps phase shifting method is usually employed to resolve the complex-conjugate ambiguity in Spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). However it reduces the image quality and also the imaging speed is slow. In this paper two steps phase-shifting is used in digital image processing to resolve the complex-conjugate ambiguity and improves the quality of reconstructed image in SD-OCT. In the two-step phase shifting method the phase shifting operation is used only once which simplified the experiment and also the effect of relative error in SD-OCT on image quality is eliminated.
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