Patent ID: 11906424
Assignee: THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 0:
1. A method for identifying chemical and structural irregularities in a substrate, comprising:
providing a sample comprising a plurality of points and having chemical or structural variations;
providing a terahertz scanner comprising:
at least one terahertz source generating a terahertz beam along a terahertz beam path, and
at least one terahertz detector, wherein
the terahertz scanner produces a characteristic signal when the terahertz beam is detected by the at least one terahertz detector after interacting with a point of the plurality of points of the sample; and
the terahertz scanner produces a reference signal when the terahertz beam is not intercepted by the sample;

obtaining a characteristic signal and a reference signals for at least one point of the plurality of points of the sample;
extracting one or more characteristic features from a characteristic data set afforded by the characteristic signal, and extracting one or more corresponding reference features from a reference data set afforded by the reference signal; wherein at least one of the characteristic features and the corresponding reference features are selected from a list consisting of: peak intensity, average intensity, delay, pulse width, spectral power, phase of the characteristic signals, and any combination thereof;
analyzing the characteristic features and the corresponding reference features using a machine learning data analysis model to find chemical and or structural information about the sample; and
recognizing irregularities in or differences between the characteristic features and the corresponding reference features to identify the chemical or structural variations in the sample.