The development of a low cost, fibre coupled terahertz spectrometer

In this proposal, we seek Follow-on funding to support the technical and commercial development of a cheap highly portable terahertz (THz) frequency time-domain spectrometer that will, within a five year timescale, reduce both the cost and size of such instrumentation by a factor of >10. The IP which we will exploit is the generation and detection of terahertz radiation from a new material (iron-doped indium gallium arsenide, Fe-InGaAs) which is showing tremendous potential for integration with relatively cheap telecoms wavelength lasers, which we developed using a recent EPSRC grant (PORTRAIT; EP/D50225X/1). We have protected use of this material for THz spectroscopy by a recent GB patent application (GB 0912512.1), and now seek to commercialize our results in order to push the wide-scale uptake of THz spectroscopy systems across a broad range of application areas, which include (but are not restricted to) the pharmaceutical, security, process monitoring, and medical sectors. In each area, there have been extensive demonstrations (by both academia and industrial R&D laboratories) of the potential impact of THz spectroscopy, but the keys factors of price and lack of portability have so far limited commercial uptake. Our new material allows efficient THz emission using cheap and highly portable (1.55 micron) fibre lasers. We have shown that it is possible to construct fibre-coupled THz emitters and detectors using our material which offer greater flexibility and enhanced performance compared to existing technology. We now seek to create optimized prototype THz emitters and detector components, based on our recently patented new material, which will be appropriate for widespread applications of THz frequency range sensing across many sectors.Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) systems have wide-scale applicability, especially for the measurement of polycrystalline powders, which typically have characteristic fingerprint spectra in the THz frequency range. THz spectroscopy and imaging systems thus offer the possibility of non-contact characterization and monitoring of a wide range of materials, which include pharmaceutical drugs, drugs-of-abuse, and explosives, inter alia. We are targeting the pharmaceutical market during the Follow-on funding period, owing to the established use of THz technology there. THz-TDS is proven to have importance in the pharmaceutical industry owing to its ability to distinguish polymorphic forms, and the ability to penetrate tablet coatings and packaging. Furthermore, it provides complementary information to other vibrational spectroscopic techniques, particularly Raman spectroscopy, owing to the different selection rules governing which normal modes are observed. The US Food and Drug Administration guidance for pharmaceutical development, manufacturing, and quality assurance has explicitly placed process analytical technologies, such as THz-TDS, as central to innovation in pharmaceutical manufacture over the coming decade.

The main short-term impact of our technology will be related to the direct commercialisation of terahertz emitter and detector components, working with our industrial partners, according to the strategy outlined in the commercial development plan. We will begin manufacture and sales of our emitter and detector components, tailored to the pharmaceutical and terahertz research markets, by month 12 of the project. We have identified with AstraZeneca clear advantages of our components in cost and flexibility over the currently available technology. The availability of low-cost fibre-coupled components will be useful for spectroscopy undertaken both during drug formation (identification of polymorphs), and subsequently for monitoring drugs during manufacture and storage. Within 18 months of project completion, however, we aim to build on this impact by commercializing a complete laser spectrometer system based on our technology; this will have the potential to impact a wider range of industries, including the security, non-destructive testing, and medical sectors. Applications in non-destructive testing (NDT) include space, aerospace and ground vehicles for NASA, the military and civilian use. Metallic surface roughness on a nominally smooth surface is a potential indication of material degradation or damage. When the surface is coated or covered with an opaque dielectric material, such as paint or insulation, then inspecting for surface changes becomes almost impossible. Terahertz NDT is a method capable of penetrating the coating and inspecting the metallic surface. The technique, currently is use by NASA for inspecting the foam on the space shuttle, has massive potential in the aerospace industry for detecting the signs of aging, for ground military vehicles, and also in the automobile industry. Each of these sectors will be analysed during our market report to evaluate which to target first. Uses for our technology in the security sector will include identification of drugs-of-abuse and explosives in laboratory environments, as well as in the field , in airport security scanning for example, where the reduced cost and system size will be key to uptake. A related and potential lucrative sales route we have identified is in the screening of small packages through transit hubs at airports. Recent visits to the FedEx Stansted Airport depot, for example, revealed a pressing need for a small footprint THz scanner capable of penetrating packaging material, which could be used to determine the contents of packages. In the medical sector, surface tissue imaging, such as cancerous tissue imaging and identification of melanomas, has already been demonstrated using the more expensive 800 nm Ti:sapphire laser technology, but the availability of a system ten times cheaper will act to widen the possible application areas beyond preventative medicine to encompass target drug delivery, for example. For each of these sectors, our commercial development plan will provide a detailed market assessment of need and current market value. We will use these assessments to inform our negotiations during the project with laser manufacturers such as Toptica; these negotiations will lead to manufacture of a complete fibre-coupled laser system after the end of the project (we envisage release of this system within 18 months of project completion). In the second half of the project, we will make direct contact with key players in each of the sectors where we identify the most significant impact will arise. In each case, the commercial availability of emitters and detectors (launched at month 12, but available in prototype from the end of month 8), will allow us to take our results to companies identified by the market assessment over the second half of the project.