Physics-guided Terahertz Computational Imaging

Abstract

Visualizing information inside objects is an ever-lasting need to bridge the world from physics, chemistry, biology to computation. Among all tomographic techniques, terahertz (THz) computational imaging has demonstrated its unique sensing features to digitalize multi-dimensional object information in a non-destructive, non-ionizing, and non-invasive way. Applying modern signal processing and physics-guided modalities, THz computational imaging systems are now launched in various application fields in industrial inspection, security screening, chemical inspection and non-destructive evaluation. In this article, we overview recent advances in THz computational imaging modalities in the aspects of system configuration, wave propagation and interaction models, physics-guided algorithm for digitalizing interior information of imaged objects. Several image restoration and reconstruction issues based on multi-dimensional THz signals are further discussed, which provides a crosslink between material digitalization, functional property extraction, and multi-dimensional imager utilization from a signal processing perspective.