Broadband terahertz dielectric measurement based on multi-beam interference and Fourier transform infrared spectrometer

We demonstrate a method for obtaining optical coefficients over a broad terahertz spectral range from 1.5 THz to 16 THz at room temperature. Based on the interferograms directly acquired by a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR), multi-beam interference principle combining Fresnel’s formula is employed to extract the refraction index and the extinction coefficient, giving the basis for calculating dielectric coefficients. It avoids the uncertainty and phase instability while using Kramers–Kronig (KK) relations and overcomes the limited frequency range of terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (TDS). Moreover, this method has better stability and is needless of cutting useful information between neighboring interference peaks for thin samples compared with TDS, making it a general processing method for interferograms and a good alternative for terahertz dielectric measurement.