Resolution Enhancement in Terahertz Imaging via Deconvolution

Nowadays, terahertz (THz) imaging is quite promising in scientific and biomedical applications. However, the much longer wavelength degrades the resolution of obtained images compared with classical imaging at optical frequencies. Imaging is considered to be a convolution process between the object function and point spread function (PSF) of the system. Thus, how to describe the object accurately from a blurred image is an inverse problem. In this paper, we demonstrate how well such a method can function. We would illustrate how to make current facilities overcome the physical limitations in imaging, which can image at the sub-spot level. Periodical stripes with a period of 0.8 mm are resolved at 0.3 THz. The resolution is 0.32 times the physical size of the focused beam. Moreover, this method is extended to the mathematical operations in a complex domain, which is distinct from previous image studies via visible/IR light. Physically, it means that we essentially deal with phase by making use of the wave nature of THz light. For the first time, it is demonstrated that the reconstructed phase can also describe the shape of the object by applying such an approach. In addition, we have successfully measured the diameter of human hair with a relative error of less than 10% at 3 THz. As an example, we did an experiment on tissues of colorectal cancer and a better image is obtained, which would be helpful for medical diagnosis. We believe that such an approach is able to improve imaging performance at THz frequencies and many applications will gain from it.