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LONDON (Reuters) - A British company has developed a camera that can detect weapons, drugs or explosives hidden under people's clothes from up to 25 meters away in what could be a breakthrough for the security industry. The T5000 camera, created by a company called ThruVision, uses what it calls "passive imaging technology" to identify objects by the natural electromagnetic rays -- known as Terahertz or T-rays -- that they emit. The high-powered camera can detect hidden objects from up to 80 feet away and is effective even when people are moving. It does not reveal physical body details and...

Researchers in the US have used an artificially-structured "metamaterial" to build a device that can control highly-elusive terahertz (THz) radiation. The modulator is claimed to be ten-times better at switching a THz beam than previous designs and could pave the way for the use of the radiation in a wide range of applications in chemistry, astronomy and even airport security (Nature 444 597). Sandwiched between the microwave and infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum (at about 300 GHz to 10 THz), THz radiation is notoriously difficult to work with. It is too high frequency to be manipulated electrically like microwaves...

A breakthrough in the harnessing of ‘T-rays’ - electromagnetic terahertz waves - which could dramatically improve the detecting and sensing of objects as varied as biological cell abnormalities and explosives has been announced. Researchers at the University of Bath, UK, and in Spain have said they have found a way to control the flow of terahertz radiation down a metal wire. Their findings are set out in a letter published in the current journal Physical Review Letters. The title of the letter is: “Terahertz surface plasmon polariton propagation and focusing on periodically corrugated metal wires”. Terahertz radiation, whose frequency is...

Proponents of the new Ballistic Deflection Transistor technology say it will produce computers that are faster, more powerful, and more efficient at using power. Scientists at the University of Rochester have come up with a new "ballistic computing" chip design that could lead to 3,000-gigahertz — that's 3-terahertz — processors that produce very little heat.Marc Feldman, professor of computer engineering at the University, characterizes the design, the Ballistic Deflection Transistor (BDT), as radical. "There's a real problem for standard transistors to keep shrinking," he says. The BDT doesn't have a capacitance layer that becomes problematic at very small scales the...

NEWARK, Oct. 12 Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) are putting a 21st century spin on a 19th century technology to make the nation’s ports and coastal waters safer. Airships — known today mainly for advertising flyovers at football games — are the core of a new coastal surveillance system in development for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) of the U.S. Department of Defense. But the new models will bear little resemblance to their predecessors. These High Altitude Stratospheric Airships (HASAs) will be unmanned, stationary platforms 14 to 16 miles above the ground. At 500 feet long and...

Handheld terahertz wand to unmask terrorists 09:30 12 July 04 Exclusive from New Scientist The next generation of security screening systems will be based on so-called terahertz technology that can see weapons and explosives hidden under people's clothes. But using terahertz radiation to produce X-ray-like images of passengers is likely to be unacceptable for routine use, as it will allow security staff to see the people they are scanning as if they were naked. The answer, according to a company called TeraView in Cambridge, UK, is to use the terahertz radiation in a different way. Instead of producing images, it...

Professor in talks over spy machine A new spy machine could have major implications for national security and health care. The device, called a T-ray machine, can be used to read books without opening them, scan documents without leaving fingerprints and see through all kinds of materials. Spy chiefs are now in talks with Professor Martyn Chamberlain about his research at the Univeristy of Durham. They believe the machine could be used to check for weapons under clothing or at airports to search passengers or to scan lorries for drugs or illegal immigrants. It could also have a major impact...

Sunday, February 16, 2003 The 'terahertz' camera at work: This man is fully clothed.   Voyeurs take note: a portable, cheap camera that can see through objects and clothing may be available for sale to common folk in as little as five years, say British-based space researchers.The camera, built by a European Space Agency-funded team working at a lab in central England, could one day be used to find skin cancer or hidden weapons, reveal wounds beneath animal fur or bandages, spot forged works of art, even pierce through fog.The technology was unveiled last fall, but it was just...

Source: European Space Agency Date: 2003-02-12 Space Camera Blazes New Terahertz TrailsNew imaging technology came to life when the European Space Agency's StarTiger team captured the world's first terahertz picture of a human hand. "When we started last June we set an ambitious goal: to build in four months the first compact submillimetre-wave imager with near real time image capturing using state-of-the-art micro-machining technology," said Peter de Maagt, ESA's StarTiger Project Manager, "we reached this goal when the first terahertz images were taken in September." This breakthrough in terahertz imaging opens up the possibility for a new generation of...