Safety Thresholds for Terahertz Exposure
Safety Standards for the Terahertz frequency region have not been rigorously developed so far due to the scarceness of applications in this frequency band. The situation has recently changed however, and this band is becoming populated by new applications, which is why safety concerns are now more serious for the THz band. Traditionally, only thermal effects have been considered as a basis for developing standards, while non-thermal and micro-thermal effects have been discussed and researched during the past decades. This work builds a theoretical framework where some micro-thermal effects can be estimated as a basis for deriving safe exposure levels over THz frequencies. The paper appears in:
M. Saviz, O. Spathmann, J. Streckert, V. Hansen, M. Clemens, R. Faraji-Dana, Theoretical Estimations of Safety Thresholds for Terahertz Exposure of Surface Tissues, Terahertz Science and Technology, IEEE Transactions on , vol.3, no.5, pp.635-640, Sept. 2013
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6528026&isnumber=6584905
Abstract: This paper contributes to the topic of radiation safety in the THz band by providing theoretical estimations of the permissible incident power densities over 100 GHz-10 THz. Microthermal absorption has been characterized and a worst-case analysis has been done to provide thresholds for the tissue-internal electric field strength at THz frequencies. Dielectric models for the skin and the cornea of the eye as exposed surface tissues have been constructed and used to estimate the corresponding thresholds for incident power densities. The findings of this study shall be useful as a new theoretical framework for future studies related to THz radiation safety and regulation.