Antenna and EM interactions with Life sciences
Coherent THz Spectrometry in Chemistry and Biology
Terahertz radiation is defined by the frequency range of 0.1 to 10 THz (1 THz equals 1 trillion cycles per second) and interest in its application to the medical, pharmaceutical and biological sciences has grown in the last decade.
A broad theme of THz research has been to apply the coherent nature of the radiation from our various sources and receivers to biological and chemical systems. Coherent transmission and detection provides a referenceable probe for building a metrology to characterise the manifold and complex distinct, collective vibrational (i.e. ‘normal’) modes present in many (bio)materials. The study of the rich vibrational density of states at THz frequencies at the mesoscopic scale will increasingly inform the basis of nano-engineering for novel macroscopic materials’ behaviour. Our recent papers report the unconventional utility of the Vector Network Analyser (VNA) in this effort. One shows the VNA sensitive to the same chemical reaction processes in a hardening bio-cement as seen by neutron scattering. The challenge in all experimental cases is how to ‘hold’ the sample. Our metrology innovates schemes for supporting gantry suited to achieving a workable S/N while remaining benign to the system under study.
National and International Collaborations
International
- University of Regensburg (THz Science and Technology, faculty of Physics, Prof. Sergey Ganichev)
- Materials Science Research Institute, Department of Oral Diagnostics, Semmelweis University, Budapest 1088, Hungary (Prof. Csaba Dobó-Nagy & Dr. Kun-Viviana Tian)
- St Petersburg Ioffe Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences (Profs. Pavel Belov, Mikhail Khodorkovskiy)
- The Center for Electromagnetic Research and Characterization, The Applied Physics Department (Dr. Paul Ben-Ishai)
- China (Xiamen)
United Kingdom
- Centre Lead - Professor of Cutaneous Biology, Blizard Institute (Prof. Philpott Centre Lead - Professor of Cutaneous Biology)
- Dr. Greg Chass, Prof. Richard Pickersgill (QMUL), school of Biological and Chemical Sciences
- UCL, Leeds, Cavendish (http://www.terahertzsystems.org/news – Alwyn Seeds et al)
- University of Reading (Dr. Silas Hajiloucas)
- STFC, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, (MMT Group)
Industry
- Thomas Keating Ltd (Dr. Richard Wylde)
- MediWise Ltd, 42 New Road London, (George Palikaras & Dr. Themos Kallos)
Internal and External Collaborating Investigators working in the Domain
United Kingdom
- QMUL (Prof. Richard Pickersgill (SBCS), Prof. Mike Reece and Dr. Tina Chowdhury (SEMS);
- NPL (Dr. Richard Dudley and Dr. Mira Naftaly);
- Reading (Dr. Silas Hadjiloucas, Dr. John Bowen);
- Imperial (Prof. Norbert Klein);
- Sheffield (Dr. Robert Falconer)
Europe
- Ruhr-Universität Bochem, Germany (Prof. Martina Havenith);
- Philipps University Marburg, Germany (Prof. Martin Koch)
- Technical University of Denmark (Prof. Peter Uhd Jepsen)
USA
- University at Buffalo (Prof. Andrea Markelz)
Australia
- University of Adelaide (Prof. Derek Abbott)
- University of Wollongong (Prof. Roger Lewis)
Highlights and Research Outcomes
- Royal Society of Chemistry, Recent Advances in Spectroscopy at Terahertz Frequencies, 31st Oct. 2013, RSC Thomas Graham House, Science Park, Milton, Cambridge
- Workshop and Short courses, Introduction to Advanced Measurement Techniques for Material Characterization, EuMW Nuremburg, September, 2013
- Biophotonics, Millimeter Wave and THz Metrology in Material, Biological and Chemical Sciences, Glasgow 2013
- IoP, Dielectrics 2013, University of Reading, May 2013
- Invited talk at PIERS, Stockholm August 2013
Selected Research Grants and Projects
- 2014 - 2017 EPSRC EP/K038125/1 Active Quasi-Optics for High Power THz Science £465,158
Selected Recent Publications
- Jianhua Tang, Bin Yang, Ian Llewellyn, Ronald R Cutler, Robert S Donnan, “Bacillus Spores and Their Relevant Chemicals Studied by Terahertz Time Domain Spectroscopy”, Chemical Physics Letter, Accepted December 2013
- Sushko, Oleksandr; Dubrovka, Rostyslav; Donnan, Robert, “Terahertz spectral domain computational analysis of the hydration shell of proteins with increasingly complex tertiary structure”, J. Phys. Chem B, to appear in publication DOI: 10.1021/jp407580y
- Yi wang, Bin Yang, Yingtao Tian, Robert S. Donnan and Michael J. Lancaster, “Micromachined thick-mesh filters for millimeter-wave and terahertz applications”, accepted for publication in IEEE Transaction on Terahertz Science and Technology, 10 Dec. 2013
- Sun, Wenfeng; Yang, Bin; Wang, Xinke; Zhang, Yan; Donnan, Robert, “Accurate determination of THz optical constants by vector network analysis of Fabry-Perot response”, Optics Letters, Vol. 38 Issue 24, pp.5438-5441 (2013)
- Sushko, Oleksandr; Shala, Kastriot; Dubrovka, Rostyslav; Donnan, Robert, “Revised metrology for enhanced accuracy in complex optical constant determination by THz-time-domain spectrometry”, JOSA A, Vol. 30 Issue 5, pp.979-986 (2013)
- McIntosh AI, Yang B, Goldup SM, Watkinson M, Donnan RS “Crystallization of Amorphous Lactose at High Humidity Studied by Terahertz Time Domain Spectroscopy”, Chemical Physics Letters 558 (2013) 104–108.
