THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, Febraury 26, 1996 TAG: 9602240095
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Tech Track
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
SUPERMAN FANS know their hero has mighty eyes, capable of seeing through anything but lead. But even a Krypton native can't make out how much fat is inside a slab of bacon or how much water a leaf holds.
Inventor Martin Nuss' ``T-rays'' can. And more besides. That's what could lead over the next several years to dramatic improvements in everything from car manufacturing to airport security; not to mention grocery shopping.
The discovery came as Nuss, a researcher at AT&T's Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, was working with electrical pulses to test high-speed transistors and electronic circuits. Using a solid-state laser firing off ultrashort bursts of light energy, Nuss eventually figured out how to produce, focus and interpret trillion-cycle-per-second, or terahertz, radiative waves.
T-rays, which exist between the infrared and radio sections on the electromagnetic spectrum, ``see'' vibrations of molecules inside various materials. (By contrast, X-rays essentially produce shadows of varying intensity on photographic film as they pass through materials.) Although metals and other conductive substances are impervious to terahertz radiation, plastics, fabric, cardboard and wood are not.
As the terahertz rays pass through a target material, substances inside - say, water or gases - absorb, reflect or disperse the radiation. A computer is then able to analyze such signals, decoding them into detailed information on the material's structure and composition.
Nuss reports that T-rays will be used first in security systems and as monitors of quality control and moisture content, especially in manufacturing of textiles and plastics. That's why consumers should ultimately be the big winners: better and less expensive products, from carpet to cars, made more efficiently with fewer flaws.
Other uses - skin cancer diagnosis or burn treatment, for instance, or to guarantee freshness of fruits and vegetables - will come later.
Nuss and his Bell Lab colleagues have already built a prototype T-ray machine; a more refined model is expected by year's end. According to Nuss, barring outstanding technical difficulties, T-ray machines should go on the market within two years. MEMO: ``Tech Track'' will appear every Monday in the Daily Break. Readers
with ideas for future columns are invited to contact staff science and
technology writer James Schultz at (804) 446-2599, or via e-mail at
schultz(AT)infi.net
ILLUSTRATION: Color illustration
AT&T Bell Laboratories
Fat appears almost white in this T-ray image of a slice of bacon.
by CNB