Interferometric imaging with terahertz pulses

We demonstrate a new reflection imaging technique using single-cycle pulses, in which the sample to be imaged is placed at the focus of a lens in one arm of a Michelson interferometer. The detected signal is the superposition of the pulses from the two arms of the interferometer, one with a sample and one with a reference mirror. Because of the Gouy phase shift from the lens in the sample arm, these two pulses are nearly /spl pi/ out of phase, and can destructively interfere. This leads to a strong cancellation of the measured waveform and a nearly background-free imaging method. We demonstrate the technique using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and show that the destructive interference provides enhanced sensitivity to features in the sample that are much thinner than the coherence length of the radiation. This technique could be valuable in any low-coherence tomographic measurement in which the reflected electric field can be measured directly.