Terahertz Characterisation of Living Plant Leaves for Quality of Life Assessment Applications

This paper presents preliminary results on employing Terahertz (THz) technology for measuring the water contents of leaves. The main purpose of this work is to highlight transmission constraints of terahertz radiation through the plants in the THz frequency region. Multiple leaves of plants are examined using the THz Swissto12 system, and the effect of thickness and water contents on transmission loss and attenuation are observed at different frequency regions, which can lead to meaningful information to study and analyse the existence of any pesticides in leaves with terahertz frequencies. The results of this paper pave the way for applicability of terahertz frequencies for sensing the quality of life in plants

Electromagnetic Properties of Plant Leaves at Terahertz Frequencies for Health Status Monitoring

The realization of water as an important and fundamental component requires in photosynthesis, nutritional transport, and to the effective and timely growth of plant leaves. In this work, a novel technique has been presented to determine the electromagnetic parameters of plant leaves. The measurements results of electromagnetic parameters are discussed in detail. Upon a close observation, it has been found both permittivity and a refractive index of fresh leaves showed a decline trend in their peak values from day 1 to 4 due to the rapid evaporation of moisture in tissues of leaves, and variations occurred in the morphological structure of fresh and water-stressed leaves. The technique proposed here can be employed for feasible and non-invasive plant leaves health monitoring