Safer alternative to X-rays

A Boise State University engineering professor is partnering with an Austin, Texas-based company to develop a miniaturized device to generate high-frequency electromagnetic waves.

The device could someday help provide a safer alternative to X-rays or be used as part of new secure communications systems.

Jim Browning, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boise State, is working with Stellar Micro Devices in Texas with $100,000 in start-up funding from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Browning is performing computer modelling of the device as part of the project’s six-month first phase. He said he is hopeful further phases of the project will be approved that will provide significantly more funding.

The tiny device, called a Micro Vacuum Backward Wave Oscillator, would be capable of generating electromagnetic waves at a frequency of more than 100 GHz. For comparison, cell phones operate at frequencies around 1GHz while FM radios operate around 100 MHz.