Linewidth Extraction From the THz Absorption Spectra Using a Modified Lorentz Model

Identification of specific materials is one of the most promising THz applications. It is commonly achieved by comparing the experimental peak central frequencies of the transmission or absorption spectra with a database for known materials while neglecting the linewidths. However, due to the restriction of the signal-to-noise ratio, only a narrow band, extending from several hundred GHz to several THz, can be used. It is difficult to distinguish two materials from each other if their peaks' central frequencies are similar. In this paper, we present a modified Lorentz model by taking the scattering effect into account. The modified Lorentz model can be used for the extraction of reliable absorption peak parameters, i.e. the central frequency and linewidth. On comparison with our experiments, we observed that the parameters extracted using the modified Lorentz model in glutamine samples of different concentrations exhibited a better agreement than those obtained using the traditional model. Therefore, the utilization of the narrow THz band to identify materials can be improved by comparing both the central frequency and linewidth obtained from this method.