the Project
Terahertz Imaging Arrays Using Metamaterial Integrated Components.
Winner
Dr Ullrich Pfeiffer
Institute for High-frequency and Quantum Electronics
University of Siegen
Hölderlinstr. 3
Siegen 57068
Germany
http://www.hqe.fb12.uni-siegen.de/
Ullrich Pfeiffer, age 35, is a physics graduate who specialized in high-frequency circuits and system. He did his Ph.D. in experimental particle physics at the University of Heidelberg from 1996 to 1999 with the focus on highly integrated real-time trigger electronics now being installed at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN). Since 2001, Ullrich Pfeiffer has been a research staff member at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center in New York, where he has won a series of awards, particular for his contributions to IBM’s mmWave circuits, which will be a key enabling technology for future high-density terahertz radiation detectors.
He said: “This is just the boost we needed. The award will help us to understand the fundamental capabilities of high-density terahertz imaging arrays. Novel materials, circuits and systems require a lot of up front investment we would not be able to spin-off without funding of this nature.”
Provisional Award
€ 1,228,000
Project Description
The terahertz region of the electromagnetic spectrum, from 100 GHz to 10 THz, is of growing scientific and commercial interest. Terahertz waves can be used to study the structure and dynamics of a wide range of molecules and terahertz applications will span across different scientific disciplines like physics, chemistry, biology and medicine. Unlike x-rays, Terahertz radiation is non-ionizing so that health risks are minimal and imaging systems are capable of detecting concealed weapons through clothing or baggage. However there are technical challenges to be faced in exploiting this band, mostly because it spans the transition between electronic and photonic frequencies. It is therefore referred to as the Tetraherz gap, in which video-rate imaging systems would herald a breakthrough in THz science and application. Although such video-rate imaging capabilities are confined today to poorly integrated low pixel systems, great achievements have been made over the last five years at the lower end of the THz spectrum, where silicon based technologies are readily available. Pfeiffer’s aim is to close the tetraherz gap further by exploiting such developments, and to explore the capabilities of metamaterials in THz detector arrays, utilizing rapidly improving artificially engineered materials. The advantages of imaging detectors developed within this project will be not just their novel application, as in body scanning, but also their small size, as well as their cost effectiveness, since they will incorporate commercially available process technologies.
*mmWave (millimeter-wave) refers to IBM’s technology for advanced devices that transmit, receive and process radiation around one mm in wavelength, e.g. in the 60-120 GHz frequency region.
