Compressed Sensing Technology based on Terahertz

Coherent Tomographic Imaging

Youdong Guo 1, Furi Ling 1,2, *, Siyan Zhou 2, Weijun Wang1, Yue Tian2, Jianquan Yao 1,3
1
Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
2
School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
3
China College of Precision Instrument and Optoelectronics Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
* lingfuri@163.com

AbstractTerahertz imaging technology is widely applied in Translation

platform

many fields due to its properties like noncontact and Parabolic Reference
mirror Parabolic mirror
nondestructive testing. Terahertz coherent tomography is mirror
Controller

investigated in this paper. In order to improve the efficiency of

signal processing, compressed sensing (CS) is applied in the Mercury lamp Beam splitter
Parabolic
mirror
system to process the signal. Dispersion compensation methods
are also applied in the imaging system. Parabolic
Translation
platform
mirror Aperture Sample
Chopper
Stage
Keywords-component; Terahertz imaging; Optical coherent Y X

tomography; Compressed sensing; Dispersion compensation Parabolic Lock-in

amplifier
mirror
Golay Cell

.INTRODUCTIOM
Terahertz imaging technology is widely applied in many Computer

fields due to its properties like noncontact and nondestructive

testing. Optical coherent tomography (OCT) can obtain the
high-precision cross-sectional imaging for microstructure of
the sample based on principles of optical interference [1].
Combining terahertz technology and optical coherence
tomography, terahertz coherent tomography is investigated in
this paper. Compressed sensing (CS) is a new approach of
sparse signals recovered beyond the Nyquist sampling
constraints [2]. In order to improve the efficiency of signal
processing, compressed sensing is used in the terahertz
coherence tomography imaging system to samples and process
the data. Denoising and dispersion compensation methods are
also applied to process the data sampled from the terahertz
coherent tomography system for the purpose of improving the
resolution of three-dimensional image. Compared with existing
terahertz imaging system, it achieved the high-precision three-
dimensional reconstruction for the sample.
Fig.1 Terahertz coherent tomography system
The computer controls three one-dimensional stepper
motors through controller to mobile reference mirror and
sample to acquire two-dimensional signal of cross-sectional at
various depths of the sample. Three-dimensional image is
reconstructed from detecting signals recorded on the computer.
Since the system is time-domain system, the intensity of the
light accepted by detector is
I ( z ) = 0 + { ( z )} (1)
Where 0 is autocorrelation response, ( z ) is cross-
correlation response. Vertical resolution of the system could be
described by (4)
Z = 2ln 2 2 / 0.4402 / (2)

. IMAGE SYSTEM The frequency of terahertz signals transmitted by medium

pressure mercury lamp is from 1THz to 20THz. So, the center
Coherent tomography based on optical coherence wavelength 0 = 27.3 m and = 42.4 m .The vertical
technology could obtain microstructure noncontact and
nondestructive. It is good at optical profile analysis and could resolution is nearly 10 m from (2).
be used to test optical properties of samples, since its resolution
is much higher than Ultrasonography or X-ray computerized . EXPERIMENT AND SIMULATION
tomography could reach 1~15 m [3].The terahertz coherent
Two silicon wafers are placed on metal stage above with
tomography system in this paper is shown in Fig.1
their thickness are 200 m and 230 m (see in Fig.2(a)).
The Michelson interferometer is composed of beam splitter Scanning the samples by terahertz coherent tomography system
and reference mirror; this is the key component of the system. with its scanning range is 40mm 1mm .The results are presented
Selecting medium pressure mercury lamp as terahertz source to in Fig.2(b)(c)
transmit broadband terahertz signals. Two parabolic mirrors
and an aperture are applied in the system as calibration module
to adjust the size of the light. Terahertz waves incident on the
beam splitter are divided into the sample arm and the reference
arm.

(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig.2 (a) Samples (b) three-dimensional image reconstructed by raw data (c)
three-dimensional image reconstructed after noise reduction by wave filter and
dispersion compensation by iterative compensation algorithm
As we can see in the figure, three-dimensional image could
be reconstructed by data acquired from terahertz coherent
tomography system. The thicknesses (210 m and 236 m )
indicated in the figure are nearly to the actual thickness.
Meanwhile it is obviously that noise and dispersion affect the
quality of image reconstruction significantly. The noise
includes scanning noise, circuit noise, detector noise and
speckle noise. Using low-pass filter, wavelet denoising and
medium filter could reduce the noise and improve SNR
dramatically. We also compensate dispersion by iterative
compensation algorithm and the result indicate that image
quality improved further more.
Compressed sensing is based on sparse representation of
signals and its key point is signal reconstruction algorithms [4].
In order to improve the acquisition rate of the imaging system,
we also extract partial data and reconstruct original signal by
signal reconstruction algorithms. Consider a X-Z cross-
sectional of three-dimensional image obtained from terahertz
coherent tomography system and simulate compressed sensing.
Convert grayscale image of cross-sectional from time-domain
to wavelet-domain by wavelet transform based on orthogonal
wavelet bases firstly. Reconstruct the image by Orthogonal
Matching Pursuit (OMP) [5] algorithm based on 10%, 30%,
50%, 70%, 90% sparse sampled from the grayscale image in
wavelet domain. The simulation results are presented in Fig.3
The simulation results indicate that applied compressed
sensing in signal processing could reconstructed image from
much fewer data. When the acquisition rate lower than 50%,
along with acquisition rate higher, the resolution of
reconstructing image will be higher.
(a) (b) (c)
(d) (e) (f)
Fig.3 (a) The original grayscale image of X-Z cross-sectional (b) The image
reconstructed by 10% sparse samples (c) The image reconstructed by 30%
sparse samples (d) The image reconstructed by 50% sparse samples (e) The
image reconstructed by 70% sparse samples (f) The image reconstructed by
90% sparse samples
.CONCLUSION
In this paper, terahertz coherent tomography system is
investigated by combining coherent tomography technology
and terahertz image technology. The experimental results
indicate that applying terahertz in coherent tomography could
obtain the high-precision cross-sectional and three-dimensional
imaging for microstructure of the sample noncontact and
nondestructive. the image could be reconstructed by signal
reconstruction algorithms from much fewer data. It indicates
that applying compressed sensing in the system could reduce
the time of signal processing. Meanwhile the quality of the
image is effected by numerous noise and dispersion. Denoising
and dispersion compensation methods are also applied to
improve the resolution of the image.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by the National Basic Research
Program (973 Program) (Grant No.2015CB755400).
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