X-Ray Vision for Your Cellphone (using T-rays)

Copper Mountain Technologies (VNA) - RF Cafe

Webmaster:

BSEE - KB3UON

RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling 2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps while tying up your telephone line, and a nice lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail" when a new message arrived...

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My Hobby Website:

AirplanesAndRockets.com

Berkeley Nucleonics Phase Noise Testing Seminar - RF Cafe

Unlike X-rays which can penetrate metal and bone (potentially causing harm in the process), T-rays are in the electromagnetic spectrum lying between infrared and microwave. They can "see through" soft tissue, fabric, low density wood, and other low density materials. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) figured out a way to integrate a complete transmitter, receiver, and phased array antenna onto a single silicon substrate. In doing so they were able to produce enough power in the THz band to enable imaging of high density objects within low density objects. The thumbnail above shows a handgun round and a #11 X-Acto blade buried within a stuffed dog. Super-low production costs will make them cheap to integrate into cellphones and specific-purpose scanners. Privacy is about to take yet another hit as stores, office buildings, public areas, and just about any venue will be saturated with these kinds of devices. Metal pins in your bones, plates in your head, dental fillings, and hidden body piercing will be easily imaged by anyone with a so-equipped phone. Get ready for images of your "unspeakable" areas to be posted on the Web, probably along with a standard visible wavelength version alongside it. Maybe the tinfoil hat crowd might just have been on to something long before the rest of us were smart enough to follow.

California Institute of Technology's

T-Ray Microchip

Caltech electrical engineers

Kaushik Sengupta and Ali Hajimiri

demonstrate the capabilities of their

terahertz chips for imaging

Posted July 29, 2013

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