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Terahertz Quantum Metrology

Mirco Kutas

Published Jan 1, 2026• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Modern terahertz detectors enable direct measurement of the electric field, providing simultaneous access to amplitude and phase information of the terahertz radiation. However, conventional systems are often based on single-pixel detectors, limiting most imaging applications to slow raster-scanning techniques. This work presents the demonstration of a novel approach for amplitude- and phase-sensitive imaging in the terahertz range using quantum imaging with undetected photons. By decoupling the sample measurement in the terahertz range from the detection of the information in the visible, this technique enables the use of cost-effective, highly developed multi-pixel optical components. Central achievements are the observation of quantum interference with terahertz photons and its application to material characterization and molecular concentration analysis. Furthermore, image information was transferred from the terahertz to the visible spectral range, achieving a spatial resolution close to the terahertz wavelength. This approach thus provides direct access to amplitude, phase, and spectral information for imaging applications in the terahertz range using a multi-pixel camera.

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Modern terahertz detectors enable direct measurement of the electric field, providing simultaneous access to amplitude and phase information of the terahertz radiation. However, conventional systems are often based on single-pixel detectors, limiting most imaging applications to slow raster-scanning techniques. This work presents the demonstration of a novel approach for amplitude- and phase-sensitive imaging in the terahertz range using quantum imaging with undetected photons. By decoupling the sample measurement in the terahertz range from the detection of the information in the visible, this technique enables the use of cost-effective, highly developed multi-pixel optical components. Central achievements are the observation of quantum interference with terahertz photons and its application to material characterization and molecular concentration analysis. Furthermore, image information was transferred from the terahertz to the visible spectral range, achieving a spatial resolution close to the terahertz wavelength. This approach thus provides direct access to amplitude, phase, and spectral information for imaging applications in the terahertz range using a multi-pixel camera.
Abstract Quantum imaging offers a powerful method for spatially transferring amplitude and phase information between spectral regions of interest, even when separated by several orders of magnitude in photon energy. However, so far demonstrations have been limited to regions of similar orders of magnitude in frequency, where commercial cameras are available. Here, amplitude‐ and phase‐sensitive imaging in the terahertz frequency region (1.5 THz) is demonstrated by detecting only visible photons (662.2 nm, 452.7 THz), separated by over two orders of magnitude. This allows reliable detection of terahertz information using a standard CMOS camera without cooling while still achieving spatial resolution close to the terahertz wavelength. The impact of strong noise contributions is reduced through quantum distillation.The experimental results are in good agreement with numerical simulations of the imaging process and demonstrate the huge potential of this method for exploring challenging spectral regions where conventional cameras are not available.
Generation and Detection of terahertz radiation still remain a technological challenge, especially when compared to the visible or near infrared spectral range. For this reason, approaches are continuously pursued to transfer the terahertz radiation to other frequency ranges after interaction with the sample in order to utilize the advantages of the advanced detector technology. Novel quantum-optical concepts offer a further possibility to realize this transfer. This makes them an attractive alternative for the terahertz frequency range, as they only require cost-effective components such as visible continuous wave lasers and silicon-based detectors. We report on the first demonstration of imaging with undetected photons in the terahertz frequency range.
Quantum sensing is highly attractive for accessing spectral regions in which the detection of photons is technically challenging: sample information is gained in the spectral region of interest and transferred via biphoton correlations into another spectral range, for which highly sensitive detectors are available. This is especially beneficial for terahertz radiation, where no semiconductor detectors are available and coherent detection schemes or cryogenically cooled bolometers have to be employed. Here, we report on the first demonstration of quantum sensing in the terahertz frequency range in which the terahertz photons interact with a sample in free space and information about the sample thickness is obtained by the detection of visible photons. As a first demonstration, we show layer thickness measurements with terahertz photons based on biphoton interference. As non-destructive layer thickness measurements are of high industrial relevance, our experiments might be seen as a first step towards industrial quantum-sensing applications.
Quantum sensing is highly attractive for accessing spectral regions in which the detection of photons is technically challenging: Sample information is gained in the spectral region of interest and transferred via biphoton correlations into another spectral range, for which highly sensitive detectors are available. This is especially beneficial for terahertz radiation, where no semiconductor detectors are available and coherent detection schemes or cryogenically cooled bolometers have to be used. Here, we report on the first demonstration of quantum sensing in the terahertz frequency range in which the terahertz photons interact with a sample in free space and information about the sample thickness is obtained by the detection of visible photons. As a first demonstration, we show layer thickness measurements with terahertz photons based on biphoton interference. As nondestructive layer thickness measurements are of high industrial relevance, our experiments might be seen as a first step toward industrial quantum sensing applications.
Although terahertz radiation has moved into the focus of technical applications, e.g. layer-thickness measurement, the generation and detection of radiation in this spectral range remains challenging as detectors are either cooled or expensive due to the laser systems they are based on. Thus, the generation and detection of terahertz radiation continues to be of great scientific interest. A novel quantum-optical concept offers the possibility to detect only visible light containing the measurement information gained in a different wavelength range [1]. This represents an extremely attractive alternative for the terahertz frequency range, since generation can be done with visible continuous-wave lasers while detection can be achieved with sophisticated and low-cost silicon-based detectors. We report on first demonstrations of this measurement technique in the terahertz frequency range.
Abstract A typical imaging scenario requires three basic ingredients: (1) a light source that emits light, which in turn interacts and scatters off the object of interest; (2) detection of the light being scattered from the object and (3) a detector with spatial resolution. These indispensable ingredients in typical imaging scenarios may limit their applicability in the imaging of biological or other sensitive specimens due to unavailable photon-starved detection capabilities and inevitable damage induced by interaction. Here, we propose and experimentally realize a quantum imaging protocol that alleviates all three requirements. By embedding a single-photon Michelson interferometer into a nonlinear interferometer based on induced coherence and harnessing single-pixel imaging technique, we demonstrate interaction-free, single-pixel quantum imaging of a structured object with undetected photons. Thereby, we push the capability of quantum imaging to the extreme point in which no interaction is required between object and photons and the detection requirement is greatly reduced. Our work paves the path for applications in characterizing delicate samples with single-pixel imaging at silicon-detectable wavelengths.