THz Spectroscopy of Food, Industrial and Pharmaceutical Paraffin Wax

Abstract

The absorption coefficient spectra and refractive index spectra of food grade, industrial grade and pharmaceutical grade paraffin wax, the three different types of paraffin wax within the terahertz frequency range from 0.2 to 2.2 THz are measured using transmission-type terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. The average refractive indexes of food grade, industrial grade and pharmaceutical grade paraffin wax in the frequency range are respectively 1.50, 1.49 and1.46. The three different types of paraffin wax all have weak absorption for terahertz waves and each paraffin wax have several obvious absorption peaks. However, all found absorption peak positions of the three different types of paraffin wax are so close that the three are relatively difficult to be identified using transmission-type terahertz technique in present experimental conditions.