Intellectual merit: The development of new THz materials and devices requires narrow bandwidth, broadly tunable (0.03-0.9 THz), and high power (1-50mW) THz radiation sources, which operate at room temperature. Such sources do not exist and their development is essential for further development of THz electronics and photonics. This project will build such a system based on commercially available Backward Wave Oscillators (BWOs). This development will involve the design and fabrication of the broadband tunable THz source with multiple BWOs on the same optical table beaming THz radiation on the same sample and allowing for calibrated power exposure. Furthermore, experimental setups for phase-sensitive high-resolution THz-spectroscopy and THz-imaging will be developed using the broadband tunable BWO THz-radiation source. The instrumentation will advance the state-of-the-art research in THz plasma wave electronics, magnetic nanostructures and THz chemical and explosive imaging.
Broader impact: The unique THz system will be made readily available not only to Rensselaer faculty, graduate and undergraduate students but also to a large number of our collaborators, other faculty and students at many US universities, including faculty from HBCU, such as, Howard University and Morehouse College. Undergraduate Research Participation (URP) is organized by the PIs in collaboration with the NSF Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program of the Physics Department and the URP program sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Education at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The research of the participating graduate students is integrated with the IGERT program Terahertz Science & Technology A Studio Approach. Students from underrepresented groups such as African American and female students at Rensselaer will be strongly involved. As part of the educational and outreach activities we propose the production of an animated movie on the topic of "Riding on T-waves" for education and entertainment of children, similar to the highly praised MoleculariumTM animation.
