Demonstration of a wide-band compact free electron laser to the THz imaging of bio samples

We have developed a compact terahertz (THz) free electron laser (FEL). The FEL operates in the wavelength range of 100–1200 μm, which corresponds to 0.3–3 THz. THz radiation from the FEL shows much higher power of 100 W compared to the power level, <100 mW, of the table-top sources by conventional lasers. The THz FEL beam shows good performance in pulse-energy stability, polarization, spectrum and spatial distribution. The main application of the FEL is THz imaging for bio-medical researches. We demonstrated the THz imaging of bugs for living condition at 3 THz. The bugs were died just before experiments, so they were not dried. We could get transmitted information through the samples by using the THz FEL beam. In this paper, we will estimate and discuss the required power level of the THz source for the practical application of the imaging.