Syntheses of ‘Hemtex’ Simulants of Energetic Materials and Millimetre Wave Characterisation Using the Teraview CW400 Spectrometer: Fundamental Studies for Detection Applications

Explosives or energetic materials are hazardous, expensive and difficult to handle safely. As such there is a need for simulant explosive materials in order to conduct work without these issues being present. This chapter describes characterisation of a set of simulant materials with respect to millimetre wave and submillimetre wave threat detection technologies. The properties examined were the real and imaginary parts of the relative permittivity. The simulants are based on a modular approach to design appropriate chemical and physical properties which mimic explosives. Collectively, these materials are referred to as Hemtex and can be tailored to match various requirements. The subset of Hemtex materials used in this study were designed to reflect the properties of Semtex and the results of the characterisation showed promise for use as Semtex substitutes.

Dual-Band and integrated detectors for submillimetre applications

The first part of this work is focused on the design of compact and affordable integrated multi-band detectors in the terahertz range. The proposed receivers are designed to obtain information of different spectral ranges in a single measurement, reducing instrument cost, size, weight, and power consumption. To this aim, two dual-band direct detectors are proposed. The first one integrates the submillimetre wave range and the IR range, whilst the second one is intended to operate at the millimetre and submillimetre wave ranges. The second part of this work merge concepts and technologies from both, electronics and photonics domains and may be a good starting point for the creation of new silicon integrated heterodyne detectors.