Identification of Textile Fibers by Terahertz Time Domain Spectroscopy

A method to discriminate textiles based on terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) is proposed, and some commonly used synthetic fibers are investigated to study its feasibility. Their absorption spectra are measured using the THz-TDS system. The experimental results show that terylene, polyamide and vinylon each have a characteristic absorption peak at 0.98THz,1.51THz and 1.16THz in their absorption spectra respectively. Simultaneously, aromatic polyamide fiber, acrylic fiber and Tencel fiber have no characteristic peaks and still differ from each other very much. The research results show that it is feasible to apply terahertz time domain spectroscopy into the identification of synthetic fibers. Still it indicates that terahertz technique is a promising one for the detection of textiles.