Regensburg 2007 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen
TT 19: Symposium “Terahertz Detectors”
TT 19.7: Vortrag
Mittwoch, 28. März 2007, 17:30–18:00, H20
A superconducting Terahertz imager — •Torsten May1, Viatcheslav Zakosarenko1, Solveig Anders1, Hans-Georg Meyer1, Günther Thorwirth2, Ernst Kreysa3, and Nikhil Jethava3 — 1IPHT Jena e.V., Albert-Einstein-Str. 9, 07745 Jena — 2Jena Optronik GmbH, Prüssingstr. 21, 07745 Jena — 3Max-Planck Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn
Mapping objects at frequencies around one terahertz from a significant distance poses a considerable challenge for any imaging device. The power emission of bodies at room temperature is very weak, so a purely passive map requires an extremely sensitive detector. For sub-mm wavelength recently a big leap forward in the detector performance and scalability was driven by the astrophysics community. Superconducting bolometers and midsized arrays of them have been developed and are in routine use. It is conceivable that such devices will become larger, less costly and available for a wider market. So, a THz imager for industrial or security applications based on superconducting detectors comes into reach. Although devices with many pixels are foreseeable nowadays a device with an additional scanning optic is the straightest way to an imaging system with a useful resolution. Our superconducting THz imager (SCOTI) is a small cassegrain telescope with a scanning secondary mirror designed for a frequency of 0.34 THz. It can map objects from a distance between 5 meters and 20 meters using a small array of superconducting bolometers. The resolution at the object area is about 1 cm. Purely passive images of interesting objects can be taken, opening a wide field of applications.