Terahertz Medical Probe

Terahertz radiation is ideal for medical imaging as it is safe, non-ionising and uniquely sensitive to the vibration modes of water. In particular TeraView's THz medical probe has been used in the detection of cancer, providing contrast between healthy and cancerous areas in skin, breast and colonic tissues.

TeraView's medical probe provides three-dimensional information revealing structures beneath the surface with spatial resolution precision of 20 μm axial resolution of 40 μm.

The system uses an ultrafast laser housed within the core system. The femtosecond pulses produced by the laser are guided down optical fibers, contained within an "umbilical" cord alongside electrical cables, to the probe head (approximately 2 inches in diameter) where they are incident on a photoconductive emitter and receiver emitting and detecting THz pulses of bandwidth 0.1 – 2.0 THz. The THz pulse beam is focused to the probe tip, a smooth edged z-cut quartz window from which they are reflected back, by a silicon lens which is attached to the back of the quartz tip. The system has a signal to noise ratio on the receiver of 800:1 in amplitude (~10000:1 at 1THz). The system has a lateral resolution of up to 0.7mm (~1mm at 1THz) and a scan speed of up to 8 lines per second.