Inspection of alien metal particles in electronic materials such as glass fibers and resins is a critical issue to control the quality and guarantee the safety of products. In this paper, we present a new detection technique using sub-millimeter wave for films as electric materials in product lines. The advantage of using sub-millimeter wave frequency is that it is easy to distinguish conductive particles from a nonconductive material such as plastic films. Scattering of a submillimeter wave by a metal particle is used as the detection principle. By simulation, it is observed that the scattering pattern varies intricately as the diameter varies from 10 to 700 μm at 300 GHz. The demonstration system is composed of a Keysight performance network analyzer (N5247A PNA-X) with 150–330 GHz VDI extension modules, transmitting and receiving antennas, and focusing dielectric lens. An output signal is radiated via an antenna and focused onto a metal particle on a film. The wave scattered by the metal particle is detected by an identical antenna through a lens. The signal scattered from a metal particle is evaluated from the insertion loss between antennas (S₂₁). The result shows that a particle of diameter 300 μm is detectable at 150–330 GHz through S₂₁ in the experimental system that we prepared. Peaks calculated in simulation were detected in experimental data as well as in the curves of the particle diameter versus S₂₁. It was shown that using this peak frequency could improve S₂₁ level without higher frequency.

Date Published: 29 April 2016
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 9856, Terahertz Physics, Devices, and Systems X: Advanced Applications in Industry and Defense, 98560H (29 April 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2223538

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9856:
Terahertz Physics, Devices, and Systems X: Advanced Applications in Industry and Defense
Mehdi F. Anwar; Thomas W. Crowe; Tariq Manzur, Editor(s)