Dr. Nezih Tolga Yardimci is the co-founding CEO of Lookin, Inc. He has an MSc degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a PhD Degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, both in Electrical Engineering. He has broad training and experience in terahertz technology. His primary research interests focus on terahertz optoelectronics and the development of high-performance terahertz imaging and spectroscopy systems. His research on terahertz devices and systems has resulted in more than 70 publications in international journals and conference proceedings. Dr. Yardimci has received many prestigious awards, including the Burroughs Wellcome Fund's Innovations in Regulatory Science Award, the UCLA Chancellor’s Award for Postdoctoral Research, the UCLA Biomedical Innovation Award, and the SPIE Scholarship in Optics and Photonics.
Terahertz radiation interacts strongly with many materials, including polymers, composites, battery electrodes, ceramics, and semiconductors, making it a promising tool for nondestructive evaluation. Yet conventional terahertz pulse imaging systems rely on single-pixel, point-scanning detectors that are too slow and insufficiently sensitive for real industrial environments. Their limited throughput and incompatibility with fast manufacturing lines have kept THz imaging confined to laboratory use.
We address these limitations with a high-throughput THz imaging platform built on plasmonic nanoantenna-enhanced photoconductive devices and the world’s first THz-FPAs. Instead of a moving detector, our line and 2D arrays capture THz waveforms in parallel, enabling real-time inspection while improving sensitivity. GPU-accelerated reconstruction, deconvolution, and frequency-domain analysis generate calibrated maps of thickness, absorption, and material orientation. Polarization-sensitive detection further reveals features such as fiber orientation in composites that are invisible to conventional systems.
These capabilities open new opportunities in lithium-ion battery QC, fuel-cell and electrolyzer membrane inspection, and carbon-fiber composite manufacturing, as well as semiconductor and advanced packaging analysis. This talk will outline the limitations of conventional THz tools and demonstrate how multi-pixel THz-FPA systems enable industrial-scale, quantitative THz imaging.