A Priori Information and Off-Axis Measurements in Terahertz Tomography

Terahertz tomography is a non-contact inspection technique to image objects from multiple angles and reconstruct their 3D volume from intensity and time-of-flight transmission data, without the need for radiation protection measures. Unlike X-rays, terahertz radiation is subject to strong diffraction and refraction when propagating through dielectric materials, which often deteriorate the image reconstruction quality. Our solution to this problem applies ray tracing, considering the beam shape and an a priori model of the sample under investigation to predict the beam paths of the terahertz radiation. We present two reconstruction methods based on the resulting beam path predictions yielding higher image quality. Method 1 filters out beams deviating strongly, thus removing induced artifacts and errors from the reconstruction image. Method 2 employs off-axis measurements that acquire data along the full detection plane and in this way detect even strongly deflected beams. Considering these beams and the information they carry in the reconstruction enhances the image quality. Applying these methods to terahertz tomography, even complicated structures can be imaged. We display the significant enhancements achieved with the two methods by comparing the reconstruction results of different polymeric samples.