High-speed terahertz system for industrial quality control
Applications in industrial quality and process control take advantage of terahertz systems that are inherently safe , work in a contact-free manner and achieve a very high measurement speed .
Gräfelfing , 27.02.2020 Measurement speed becomes particularly relevant if the task involves rapidly moving samples , e . g ., thickness gauging in extrusion lines , or items on fast conveyor belts that may need to be screened with single-millimeter resolution .
In contrast to conventional terahertz timedomain spectrometers , the TeraFlash smart does not use any mechanical delay unit , but includes two synchronized femtosecond lasers with an electronic
74 FDPP - www . fdpp . co . uk delay (“ electrically controlled optical sampling ”, ECOPS ). This concept results in extremely high measurement speeds : the TeraFlash smart acquires 1600 complete terahertz waveforms per second , enabling terahertz-based thickness gauging at unprecedented speed .
FLEXIBLE MEASUREMENT SETUP
Within a measurement time of only 625 µ s , the TeraFlash smart achieves a spectral bandwidth of 3 THz . The dynamic range of the pulse trace is greater than 50 dB . Within one second of averaging , this value increases to > 80 dB and the bandwidth exceeds 4 THz . Users can flexibly adjust the terahertz path length from 10 cm to 180 cm . The fiber-coupled transmitter and receiver antennas can be flexibly positioned and enable measurements in transmission or reflection .
Reflection measurements are particularly suitable to determine layer thicknesses , for example to investigate the wall thickness of plastic pipes , or the structure of polymer coatings or single- and multilayered paint . The 10 m long fiber cables allow a spatial separation of the control unit from the measurement head , which can even be mounted on a robot arm .
For more information visit the TeraFlash smart webpage .
www . toptica . com