TUE’s remote labs enhance experimental setups from home

Small buzzing sounds, movements of translation stages and mirrors, polarizers rotating, lasers turning on and off. It’s a research setup in action. But the lab is dark and empty, and nobody’s there to push the buttons. This setup belongs to Niels van Hoof, Applied Physics PhD student at Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE). He managed to have complete remote control over his laboratory setup. “I only have to physically change my sample from time to time,” says Van Hoof. His setup is used to study the properties of metamaterials. These are surfaces with very tiny structures that scatter light in a controlled way, which give them unusual properties. They can be used, for example, as better sensors or high-frequency switches for communication.

“The setup is unique. There’s only one in the world,” notes Van Hoof proudly. “We call it a terahertz near-field microscope. We use terahertz light: electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths between 0.1 mm infrared and 1.0 mm microwave. By using a very short laser pulse – 100 femtoseconds – and an emitter, a THz pulse is produced that shines onto the metamaterial sample, which then resonates with THz light frequencies. We then analyze the resulting THz field on the sample’s surface with a second laser pulse and a special near-field detector. Ultrafast measurements of this THz field result in a lot of information, such as intensities and phases at various locations, which we measure with super precision – 100 times smaller than a conventional setup.”