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Optimisation of sample thickness for THz-TDS measurements

Optics 2008-07-16 v1 Materials Science

Abstract

How thick should the sample be for a transmission THz-TDS measurement? Should the sample be as thick as possible? The answer is `no'. Although more thickness allows T-rays to interact more with bulk material, SNR rolls off with thickness due to signal attenuation. Then, should the sample be extremely thin? Again, the answer is `no'. A sample that is too thin renders itself nearly invisible to T-rays, in such a way that the system can hardly sense the difference between the sample and a free space path. So, where is the optimal boundary between `too thick' and `too thin'? The trade-off is analysed and revealed in this paper, where our approach is to find the optimal thickness that results in the minimal variance of measured optical constants.

Cite

@article{arxiv.0711.3815,
  title  = {Optimisation of sample thickness for THz-TDS measurements},
  author = {W. Withayachumnankul and B. M. Fischer and D. Abbott},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0711.3815},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

13 pages, 11 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T09:46:50.314Z