Experimental research on spectrum and imaging of continuous-wave terahertz radiation based on interferometry

A system for measuring terahertz spectrum is proposed based on optical interferometer theory, and is experimentally demonstrated by using a backward-wave oscillator as the terahertz source. A high-resolution, high-precision interferometer is constructed by using a pyroelectric detector and a chopper. The results show that the spectral resolution is better than 1 GHz and the relative error of frequency is less than 3%. The terahertz energy density distribution is calculated by an inverse Fourier transform and tested to verify the feasibility of the interferometric approach. Two kinds of carbon-fiber composites are imaged. The results confirm that the interferometer is useful for transmission imaging of materials with different thickness values.