A problem of THz endoscopy of hard-to-access tissues

Abstract

Despite THz technologies offer anumber of applications in medical diagnosis and therapy, their translation int clinics is hampered by the lack of THz endoscopes capable of sensing the THz response of the hard - to- access tissues. In this talk, we focus on recent attempts to mitigate this difficulty. We consider the two existing principles of THz endoscopy. The first uses the fiber-coupled THz photoconductive antennas (PCAs) for the THz generation and detection in close proximity to an object. The second relies on the THz optical fibers to deliver the THz waves to ananalyte and then to detect the reflected THz signal. Most recent developments in the area of THz fiber optics pave the way to solve the challenging problem of THz endoscopy. A mong them, we emphasis the THz fibers, fiber bundles, waveguides, and endoscopes developed by our research group based on the sapphire shaped crystals obtained by the edge-de fined film- fed growth (EFG) technique.