Ghost spintronic THz-emitter-array microscope

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel THz near-field microscopy technique using a reconfigurable spintronic emitter array with computational ghost imaging, enabling deeply sub-diffraction, polarization-free, real-time imaging for bioapplications.

Contribution

The work presents a reconfigurable spintronic THz emitter array combined with ghost imaging for non-invasive, high-resolution, real-time THz microscopy, surpassing traditional scanning methods.

Findings

Achieved deeply sub-diffraction resolution imaging.

Enabled polarization-free contrast through magnetic field circulation.

Demonstrated depth resolution with time-of-flight measurements.

Abstract

Terahertz (THz) wave shows great potential in non-destructive testing, bio detection and cancer imaging. Recent progresses on THz wave near-field probes/apertures enable mechanically raster scanning of an object's surface in the near-field region, while an efficient, non-scanning, non-invasive, deeply sub-diffraction-limited imaging still remains challenging. Here, we demonstrate a THz near-field microscopy using a reconfigurable spintronic THz emitter array (STEA) with computational ghost imaging. By illuminating an object with the reconfigurable STEA in near field and computing the correlation measurements, we reconstruct its image with deeply sub-diffraction resolution. By circulating an external magnetic field, the in-line polarization rotation of THz waves is realized, making the fused image contrast polarization-free. The time-of-flight (TOF) measurements of coherent THz pulses further enables to resolve objects at different distances or depths. The demonstrated ghost spintronic THz-emitter-array microscope (GHOSTEAM) is a new imaging tool for THz near-field real-time imaging (with potential of video framerate), especially opening up paradigm-shift opportunities in non-intrusive label-free bioimaging in a broadband frequency range from 0.1 THz to 30 THz (namely 3.3-1000 cm-1).