Information acquisition apparatus and information aquisition method using terahertz wave for acquiring information on object

摘要

An information acquisition apparatus includes a pulse generator 9, a detector 10, a first delay unit 15, a second delay unit 16 and a computation unit. The pulse generator 9 is excited by a first laser beam to generate a terahertz wave in the form of a pulse. The detector 10 is excited by a second laser beam coherent to the first laser beam to detect the terahertz wave from object 2 that is irradiated with the pulse of the terahertz wave. The first delay unit 15 changes the delay time in such a way that the detector 10 can detect the pulse signal of the terahertz wave from the object 2. The second delay unit 16 changes the delay time by not greater than the temporal width of the pulse signal detected by the detector 10. The computation unit computationally determines the information on the temporal position of the peak of the pulse signal of the terahertz wave from the object 2 according to the information of the signal detected by the detector 10 when the delay time is changed by the second delay unit within the delay time of the first delay unit.