Physicists from the Russian Academy of Sciences have created a T-ray generator capable of destroying metal structures in a method unknown to science, and tested it in action, according to an article published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Terahertz radiation is one of the most promising areas of research in the field of optics, microelectronics and other high-tech fields. In the future, waves of this type can be adapted for ultra-high-speed information transfer, monitoring the work of living cells in real time, and many other purposes.
Mikhail Agranat from the Joint Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and his colleagues found out that terahertz radiation can be used for other purposes, having created a device capable of producing very high intensity T-rays.
When such rays collide with "opaque" matter for them, such as metal or water, it absorbs them. In this case, the rays generate electric fields, the power of which can vary greatly. In the past, as noted by Russian researchers, the strength of these fields was low, and they were interested in how the behavior of "translucent" matter would change when the intensity of these fields increased.
To do this, physicists have assembled and tested a unique terahertz "laser" that allows you to create an electromagnetic field with a voltage of up to 100 million volts per centimeter of length, which is roughly equivalent to what fields occur when lightning strikes. According to scientists, no installation in the world can achieve such indicators.
Experimenting with this emitter, scientists fired with it aluminum plates and films, changing the power of the rays and their other properties. At a certain point in time, a T-ray pulse punched a hole in the foil, which greatly surprised Agranat and his colleagues - as scientists previously believed, terahertz radiation should quickly decay when moving through the metal and not cause it any harm.
Having discovered this phenomenon, physicists tried to repeat it and find the border where terahertz radiation begins to destroy the metal. Observations have shown that a sufficiently strong impulse is required to burn through, having an energy density of about 150 milliwatts per square centimeter.
If the power of the emitter decreases even by the smallest value, then the hole in the metal plate will not appear, but "scars" will begin to appear on its surface.
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“We found a very surprising effect. With a large number of pulses with a power below the threshold, a strange, unusual type of destruction appears. It has not yet been possible to explain it, but at least we have assumed the mechanism of its initiation. We believe that this is due to electrostriction, an increase in the volume of a material under the influence of an electric field,”the physicist notes.
In the near future, Agranat and his colleagues plan to continue experiments, during which they hope to understand why T-rays begin to "burn" holes in the metal only when a certain energy density is reached and why less powerful pulses of terahertz waves leave "scratches" on the surface. Themselves emitters of this kind can be used for fine processing of metals and other purposes.
