Monday 24 June 2013

UK Terahertz Day - bringing the THz community together

EPSRC Coherent TeraHertz Systems (COTS) Programme Grant (www.terahertzsystems.org)

Tuesday, 16 July 2013 from 10:00 to 16:00 (BST)

Cambridge, United Kingdom


Join professionals from both academia and industry, to discuss this exciting and currently underutilised area of the electromagnetic spectrum. Leading speakers from Universities and Industry will present the latest developments and detail the emerging market areas.
The EPSRC Coherent TeraHertz Systems (COTS) Programme Grant (www.terahertzsystems.org) would like to invite you to THz Day, a THz community discussion event, to be held at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge on Tuesday 16 July 2013.
The event will include invited talks from leading THz experts, including Don Arnone (Teraview Ltd) and Carlo Sirtori (University of Paris- Diderot); opportunity to introduce the work and interests of your group and a discussion on opportunities for a UK THz research network.


This event is a great opportunity for the UK Terahertz community to come together and discuss how to open up the THz spectrum for widespread scientific and commercial application, through the use of photonics-enabled coherent techniques. Hosted by insitutions from the new EPSRC funded Programme Grant COTS, our ambition is that this day will lead to THz finally achieving its full scientific and commercial potential. We will work with many academic and commercial partners to achieve this.






Draft Schedule (actual timings to be confirmed) 
10.00 - 16.00
  • Presentation of COTS Programme Grant  
  • Presentations from other UK THz groups both industry and academic 
  • Discussion on opportunities for a UK THz research network
Who should attend?
Terahertz technology offers unique solutions for many strategically important applications in 3D imaging and spectroscopy (e.g. security screening and detection, dental/medical imaging, non-destructive testing, material characterisation and pollution monitoring), as well as TBit/s communications for backbone telecommunication networks and ‘instant’ high-definition video-on-demand optical links. This conference has been designed to bring together the academic and the industrial players in this sector. Anyone interested in the potential of THz wavelengths, whether researcher or industrialist, current user, potential user or just curious will find this a useful and stimulating conference.

For more information follow this link

Monday 17 June 2013

Application of terahertz pulsed imaging to analyse film coating characteristics of sustained-release coated pellets

  • a School of Pharmacy, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
  • b Cavendish Laboratories, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
  • c TeraView Ltd., Cambridge, United Kingdom
  • d College of Pharmacy, Université Lille Nord de France, Lille, France
  • e Department of Chemistry and MacDiarmid Institute, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
  • f Department of Electronic Engineering, University College London, London, United Kingdom
  • g Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • h Division of Pharmaceutical Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

 Abstract

Terahertz pulsed imaging (TPI) was employed to explore its suitability for detecting differences in the film coating thickness and drug layer uniformity of multilayered, sustained-release coated, standard size pellets (approximately 1 mm in diameter). Pellets consisting of a sugar starter core and a metoprolol succinate layer were coated with a Kollicoat® SR:Kollicoat® IR polymer blend for different times giving three groups of pellets (batches I, II and III), each with a different coating thickness according to weight gain. Ten pellets from each batch were mapped individually to evaluate the coating thickness and drug layer thickness between batches, between pellets within each batch, and across individual pellets (uniformity). From the terahertz waveform the terahertz electric field peak strength (TEFPS) was used to define a circular area (approximately 0.13 mm2) in the TPI maps, where no signal distortion was found due to pellet curvature in the measurement set-up used. The average coating thicknesses were 46 μm, 71 μm and 114 μm, for batches I, II and III respectively, whilst no drug layer thickness difference between batches was observed. No statistically significant differences in the average coating thickness and drug layer thickness within batches (between pellets) but high thickness variability across individual pellets was observed. These results were confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The coating thickness results correlated with the subsequent drug release behaviour. The fastest drug release was obtained from batch I with the lowest coating thickness and the slowest from batch III with the highest coating thickness. In conclusion, TPI is suitable for detailed, non-destructive evaluation of film coating and drug layer thicknesses in multilayered standard size pellets.

...Samples were measured on a TPI imaga 2000 (Teraview Ltd., Cambridge, UK).

You can download the article on ScienceDirect