Enhanced terahertz vibrational absorption spectroscopy using an integrated high-Q resonator

Abstract

The terahertz (THz) absorption spectrum is a powerful method to identify substances. The improvement focuses on sensitivity and recovery ability. Here, we demonstrate enhanced THz vibrational absorption spectroscopy based on an on-chip THz whispering gallery mode resonator (THz-WGMR). A THz-WGMR with high Q can store energy and enhance the interaction between the THz waves and the target substances to capture the unique absorption fingerprint information. Therefore, it possesses significant sensitivity to identify trace amounts of substances. As a proof of concept, lactose powder and glucose powder are applied to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in recovering fingerprint absorption spectroscopy. Compared with a straight waveguide, the high sensitivity of the THz-WGMR is illustrated. The change of the transmissivity caused by the lactose reaches 7.8 dB around 532 GHz for the THz-WGMR, while only 1.4 dB for the straight waveguide, demonstrating the state-of-the-art sensing performance in fingerprint absorption recovery. We believe the proposed integrated THz-WGMR will promote the THz identification of tiny fingerprint substances.