Using the terahertz band
April 22nd, 2008 by rbanks
Tuning Terahertz
“Terahertz is the last spectrum band to be explored,” says Hou-Tong Chen, a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead researcher on the project. It has great promise as a security-imaging tool because its frequencies, which range from 300 gigahertz to 3 terahertz, easily pass through clothes but reflect off biological tissue. And since the waves don’t have the energy that x-rays do, they don’t pose the health risks. In addition, terahertz waves oscillate much faster than microwaves used in Wi-Fi do, which means that they can carry thousands of times more information than today’s wireless signals can, albeit over shorter distances.”
Technology Review
