Ex Vivo Breast Tumor Identification: Advances Toward a Silicon-Based Terahertz Near-Field Imaging Sensor

Terahertz waves cover photon energies that are orders of magnitude smaller (0.4-40 meV) than the visual spectrum. Therefore, they provide additional information on intrinsic condensed-matter properties, making them attractive for imaging applications in the life sciences 1, 2. Furthermore, they do not have an ionizing effect and are considered biologically innocuous. The ever-present water in organic matter strongly absorbs terahertz waves, and subtle changes in the water concentration can be indicative of disease 3. However, the waves? long wavelength (3mm-30 nm) severely limits their lateral resolution and creates challenges for high-resolution imaging of biological tissue on the cellular level, e.g., for tumor margin identification during cancer surgery.