This was a summer project where two science teachers joined our lab and assisted with interesting optics research projects. The projects are intended to give science teachers a better understanding of scientific research and to be accessible to students. In addition to participating in the lab's ongoing research projects, the teachers are meant to develop a short project that can be completed during the summer. Here we performed terahertz (THz) spectroscopy on various plastic toys. The teachers decided on this project because of the overlap with THz security research, a good application of THz technology.

A scan of Mace Windu (note units are in mm, the height of the figure to the sabre tip is ~4 cm):

A My Little Pony figure scan, this figure is sold as a 'mystery figure' in a sealed opaque plastic bag, yet through THz imaging we can resolve distinguishing features of the figure, and determine the specific My Little Pony character without opening the sealed figure.

A Mr. Potato Head scan, this figure is hollow inside, thus we expect strong transmission in the center of the body. In this example however, we can see there is a foreign object inside (in this case a steel exacto blade).