"TERAHERTZ: Dj vu technology"
Vladimir Kozlov, president and co-founder of Microtech Instruments Inc., is building cutting-edge products out of technology that's almost 60 years old. "Our sources of terahertz [waves] are based on vacuum diodes, also known as backward-wave oscillators, which is fairly old technology, having been developed in Russia after World War II," said Kozlov, who helped found Eugene, Ore.-based Microtech in 1992. "We engineered Russian BWOs into a complete terahertz spectrometer for the experimenter, and we've continually upgraded it for about 12 years now." Kozlov claims today's solid-state researchers have a long way to go to catch up with Microtech's turnkey terahertz spectrometers, which offer high-power, high-resolution, spectroscopic imaging with broadband radiation from 30 GHz to 1.5 THz. Using BWOs as sources, the tabletop systems also include terahertz detectors with a 2-inch-square opto-acoustic sensor called a "golay cell." Both the BWOs and golay cells are manufactured exclusively in Russia.
Audio Interviews / Text: http://eetimes.com/article/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=18402808