Broad band terahertz time domain spectroscopy on polymers and organic electro-optic polymers

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http://hdl.handle.net/11603/1048

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Date

2009-01-01

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theses
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application/pdf

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Physics

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Physics, Applied

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This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is made available by UMBC for non-commercial research and education. For permission to publish or reproduce, please see http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/specoll/repro.php or contact Special Collections at speccoll(at)umbc.edu.
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Subjects

absorption
bandwidth
optic
polymer
spectroscopy
terahertz

Abstract

Several polymers and two organic polymer composites were studied using terahertz time domain spectroscopy and analyzed using Duvillaret's method and a dynamic range analysis to determine their credible bandwidth. Terahertz time domain spectroscopy is a technique that allows us to determine the real index of refraction and the absorption of nonconductive materials in the terahertz band. These polymers are used as hosts to build organic composites for terahertz generation through optical rectification and detection via electro-optic (EO) sampling. Knowledge of their optical parameters is important when considering them as hosts for emitters and detectors. Also, the knowledge of these parameters over a wide bandwidth is important in the determination of the degree of phase matching that these materials can have, for a given center wavelength of an optical pump pulse. Broad bandwidth and a clear spectrum were achieved with an air-plasma emitter and an organic EO polymer sensor. In this thesis a bandwidth that goes from 0.7 to 9 THz for the real index of refraction and for the absorption coefficient for the majority of the polymers, is reported.