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from the more-ways-for-TSA-to-look-at-people dept.
Terahertz radiation is touted to open up many wondrous possibilities. T-ray technology could allow security officials to detect concealed weapons from a distance, provide accurate medical imaging, and allow high-speed wireless data communication.
One of the challenges in making the technology viable, though, has been developing a compact, efficient, and powerful terahertz source. The sources used today are bulky and costly. Some, such as quantum cascade lasers, require cryogenic temperatures.
A team of physicists now proposes a way to convert DC electric fields into terahertz radiation. They have come up with a seemingly simple nanoscale device—it relies on complex physics, mind you—that consists of a pair of two-dimensional material layers placed on top of a thicker conductor. When a DC electric current is passed through the conductor or the 2-D layer, the device should spontaneously emit terahertz radiation, the researchers say. They report the design this week in the Journal of Applied Physics.
...
The device's underlying mechanism is surface plasmon resonance: the collective oscillations of conducting electrons. The DC field causes plasmon resonance at the thick conductor's surface and at the interface between the two 2-D layers. The two plasmons couple together and cause an instability in the oscillations, which induces the emission of THz radiation. Terahertz waves range in frequency from 300GHz–3 THz, corresponding to wavelengths between 1 mm to 0.1 mm.
More information on the device's design in the article. One step closer to real tricorders?
(Score: 1) by TestablePredictions on Friday August 07 2015, @10:13PM
It is not strictly wrong for intelligent soylentils to make sociological predictions about the tech. Sex and civil-rights violations will be two of the biggies here. The internet was another example invention capable of uplifting all humankind. Instead of that though it gets used porn, teenagers to "sext" each other, and websites for cheating spouses to hookup. As well as for companies and governments to spy on every aspect of one's life to monetize or control. C'est la vie.
I agree that it would be nice if this discussion featured more engineering aspects. Sadly, I don't know enough these days to contribute to that. My physics and EE classes were a very long ago, and I only used that knowledge in my first job, not any of the recent ones. I notice the article doesn't make any mention of the reverse-direction converter. How will the T-ray be detected/measured in all those proposed future-devices? I also wasn't clear what geometry of emission this produces (maybe I skimmed too quickly). Is it isotropic or beam-like?
Is there value to be had using T-rays in optical data fibers? What materials science changes are needed to do so? What implications would T-rays have for the field of deep-sea imaging? Intra-solar long range communications? What are some other not-low-brow possible applications for the tech?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday August 08 2015, @12:19AM
Sure. The thread did seem particularly callow by any standard, but moreso by Soylent's.
Washington DC delenda est.