Three-dimensional imaging of optically opaque materials using nonionizing terahertz radiation

Terahertz electromagnetic radiation has already been shown to have a wide number of uses. We consider specific applications of terahertz time-domain imaging that are inherently three-dimensional. This paper highlights the ability of terahertz radiation to reveal subsurface information as we exploit the fact that the radiation can penetrate optically opaque materials such as clothing, cardboard, plastics, and to some extent biological tissue. Using interactive science publishing tools, we concentrate on full three-dimensional terahertz data from three specific areas of application, namely, security, pharmaceutical, and biomedical. Q 2008 Optical Society of America