OREANDA-NEWS. September 12, 2011. Fujitsu Laboratories Limited today announced that it has developed a technology that will speed inspections that use terahertz-band imaging by a factor of 25. Terahertz waves, which can penetrate non-metallic materials such as paper, plastic, and textiles for nondestructive inspections, hold the promise of showing an accurate picture of a subject, revealing hidden materials through non-destructive inspections, and making an object's interior visible. Existing terahertz-wave inspection methods have only been able to measure a part of a substance per exposure. Obtaining a complete picture of a target object has required incrementally shifting the target between repeated exposures, resulting in a time-consuming process.

Fujitsu Laboratories has developed a new optical element that obviates the need for moving the target, measuring 30 millimeters both horizontally and vertically, by reducing its inspection time from 34 minutes to 1 minute and 21 seconds - speeding up the process by a factor of 25. As a result, this new technology has potential applications in airport security, inspecting narcotics in envelopes, and inspecting electronic devices.