Descripción del proyecto
‘TeraScan’ aims to increase the technology readiness level of the state-of-the-art, ultrafast single layer graphene (SLG) detectors operating at terahertz (THz) frequencies, devised under the ERC consolidator grant ‘SPRINT’, and develop a hyperspectral imaging demonstrator suitable to the translation of this technology to industrial end-users.
The focus is on providing a compact, hyperspectral (HS) SLG camera which is low-cost (<40k€), fast (individual pixel response time < 10 ns), with low power consumption (<20W) and scalable, operating at room temperature, with NEP < 100 pW/√Hz, (frequency independent) suitable for real-time detection, in particular at operating frequencies > 2.5 THz, far exceeding the performances of commercial THz cameras. Once integrated with multiwavelength high-power quantum cascade lasers, the resulting far-field hyperspectral imaging system is plan to exceed by orders of magnitude the cost reduction, speed and resolution performances of commercial time-domain spectroscopy systems.
Specific objectives are to manufacture a compact, portable and user-friendly THz SLG camera, integrate it, on a portable optical bench, with THz QCLs, validate its core technology with commercial end-users and at trade-shows and evaluate opportunities by identifying novel end-user applications, with a detailed market, IPR and regulatory compliance study. By the end of this programme, I plan to identify a solid exploitation route by directly cooperating with THz instrument producers and with targeted commercial end-users.
Endorsing a solid commercial exploitation route, TeraScan prospects new directions and long-term impacts, in a frontier frequency domain, on many interdisciplinary fields crossing engineering, biology, medicine, cultural heritage and quantum communications.