Evaluation of Bio-materials Using a Laser-excited Terahertz Wave

Abstract

We have developed various types of terahertz sensing systems for evaluation of bio-related materials. Here, we describe a terahertz chemical microscopy that we have invented and demonstrate a label-free immune assay and evaluation of penetration speed of cosmetic liquid, each of which was realized using different way of use of the terahertz chemical microscopy.

A Versatile Terahertz Chemical Microscope and Its Application for the Detection of Histamine

“…Our group has developed an advanced version of LTEM, named the THz chemical microscope (TCM) [12,14,[18][19][20][21][22][23], which could be used for visualization of chemical reaction and bio-reaction, including small molecules and ions visualization [18,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30], cancer cell detection [31,32], antibody-antigen immunoassaying [33], enzyme kinetics analysis [34], and cosmetic and lithium ion battery evaluation [35][36][37][38][39], by measuring the electrochemical potential distribution on the sensing plate. Based on reviewing the recent progress of TCM, we believe that this versatile TCM is promising in academic research and industrial applications (Figure 1).…”