college station t-rays may make x-rays obsolete as a means of detecting bombs on terrorists or illegal drugs on traffickers among other uses contends a texas a&m university physicist who is helping lay the theoretic groundwork to make the concept a reality in addition to being more revealing than x-rays in some situations t-rays do not have the cumulative possible harmful effects alexey belyanin focuses his research on terahertz otherwise known as thz or t-rays which he says is the most under-developed and under-used part of the electromagnetic spectrum it lies between microwave radiation and infrared (heat) radiation belyanin associate professor in the texas a&m department of physics and astronomy has collaborated with colleagues at rice university and the national high magnetic field laboratory to publish findings about their t-ray research in the renowned journal nature physics thz radiation can penetrate through opaque dry materials it is harmless and can be used to scan humans belyanin says unfortunately until recently the progress in thz technology has been hampered by a lack of suitable sources and detectors belyanin and his team have offered hope: the researchers are able to control the t-rays by varying external parameters like temperature or magnetic field making it possible to build thz sensors cameras and other devices traditionally powerful photons from visible or near-infrared laser pulses are used to probe semiconductors knocking electrons out of the atoms belyanin and collaborators use the less powerful t-rays instead which only excite the waves in the electron gas because t-rays do not have enough energy to knock out electrons this is as if instead of throwing a stone into a tank of water which would create a lot of splashes we gently vibrate one wall of the tank sending a sound wave through the body of water and ripples over its surface he explains by varying temperature and the magnetic field scientists can tune the pulses and observe the behavior of the waves this provides extremely valuable and unique information about the properties of the material just like seismic waves tell you what is in the earths interior the texas a&m physicist points out the highlight of our results is observations of interference of magnetoplasmons by tiny changes in the applied magnetic field or temperature we can make plasma waves amplify or cancel each other this makes the whole sample either completely opaque or transparent to the incident thz radiation belyanin believes the technology has important practical implications such as in security work using thz cameras we could detect weapons or drugs concealed on a human body or look inside envelopes and boxes he says there are many other applications for thz radiation including material studies chemistry biology medicine -atm- watch a brief interview with alexey belyanin on you tube: contact: keith randall news & information services at (979) 845-4644 or keith-randall@tamuedu; alexey belyanin department of physics and astronomy at (979) 845-7785 or belyanin@tamuedu; or miao jingang news & information services at miaojingang@tamuedu the post physicist sees with t-rays appeared first on texas a&m college of science