Terahertz radiation, with wavelengths that lie between those of microwaves and visible light, can penetrate many nonmetallic materials and detect signatures of certain molecules.

These handy qualities could lend themselves to a wide array of applications, including airport security scanning, industrial quality control, astrophysical observations, nondestructive characterization of materials, and wireless communications with higher bandwidth than current cell phone bands.

However, designing devices to detect and make images from terahertz waves has been challenging, and most existing terahertz devices are expensive, slow, bulky, and require vacuum systems and extremely low temperatures.

Now, researchers at MIT, the University of Minnesota, and Samsung have developed a new kind of camera that can detect terahertz pulses rapidly, with high sensitivity, and at room temperature and pressure. What’s more, it can simultaneously capture information about the orientation, or “polarization,” of the waves in real time—which existing devices cannot. This information can be used to characterize materials that have asymmetrical molecules or to determine the surface topography of materials.

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