Terahertz pulse time-domain holography with balance detection: complex-domain sparse imaging.

We investigated the peculiarities of the terahertz pulse time-domain holography principle in the case of raster scanning with the balance detection system. The noise in this system represents a Skellam distribution model, which differentiates it from systems based on a photoconductive antenna. We analyzed this Skellam model and provided both numerical and experimental investigations. We found that the variance of the noise in the balance detection system does not depend on the true signal. Complex-domain images obtained in this model are filtered by block-matching algorithms adapted for spatio-temporal and spatiospectral volumetric data. We presented a new cube complex-domain filter algorithm that uses block matching in all 3D data sets simultaneously in spatial and frequency coordinates. A combination of temporal and complex-domain filters allows us to expand the dynamic range of terahertz frequencies for which we can obtain amplitude/phase information. Experimental data demonstrate an improvement in the quality of the resultant images both in the time domain and complex-spectral domain. The simulation and experimental results are in good agreement.