TeraView’s terahertz pulsed imaging (TPI™) could be critical as a means of screening for explosives or other prohibited or dangerous chemicals.
In addition to its capabilities as a "structural imaging modality", TPI™ provides spectroscopic information on the object in question, from which details of the object's chemical composition may be determined. This has important ramifications in the fight against terrorism and detection of suspicious or prohibited substances.
Figure 1: Three terahertz spectra showing glutamic acid, a basic building block of proteins in living matter, compared with two other common powdered substances
Recently a US university claimed that the specific molecular identification in the terahertz regime could be used to identify plastic explosives.
