Many difficult to detect explosives and other hazardous chemicals are known to have multiple relatively strong transitions in this “Terahertz” (<200cm-1, <6THz) regime, suggesting this method as a powerful complementary approach for identification. However, THz signal generation is often expensive, many THz spectroscopy systems are limited to just a few THz range, and strong water absorption bands in this region can act to mask certain transitions if great care isn't taken during sample preparation. Alternatively, low-frequency or “THz-Raman” spectroscopy, which covers the ~5cm-1 to 200cm-1 (150GHz - 6 THz) regions and beyond, offers a powerful, compact and economical alternative to probe these low energy transitions. We present results from a new approach for extending the range of Raman spectroscopy into the Terahertz regime using an ultra-narrow-band volume holographic grating (VHG) based notch filter system. An integrated, compact Raman system is demonstrated utilizing a single stage spectrometer to show both Stokes and anti-Stokes measurements down to <10cm-1 on traditionally difficult to detect explosives, as well as other chemical and biological samples. |
ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE
No SPIE Account? Create one
CITATIONS
Cited by 5 scholarly publications.
Raman spectroscopy
Spectroscopy
Explosives
Optical filters
Chemical analysis
Terahertz radiation
Linear filtering