Microwave

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This article is about the electromagnetic wave. For the cooking appliance, see Microwave oven. For
other uses, see Microwaves (disambiguation).

A telecommunications tower with a variety of dish antennas for microwave relay links on Frazier Peak, Ventura
County, California. The apertures of the dishes are covered by plastic sheets (radomes) to keep out moisture.

The atmospheric attenuation of microwaves and far infrared radiation in dry air with a precipitable water vapor
level of 0.001 mm. The downward spikes in the graph correspond to frequencies at which microwaves are
absorbed more strongly. This graph includes a range of frequencies from 0 to 1 THz; the microwaves are the
subset in the range between 0.3 and 300 gigahertz.

Microwaves are a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter
to one millimeter; with frequencies between 300 MHz (1 m) and 300 GHz (1 mm).[1][2][3][4][5] Different
sources define different frequency ranges as microwaves; the above broad definition includes
both UHF and EHF (millimeter wave) bands. A more common definition in radio engineering is the
range between 1 and 100 GHz (wavelengths between 0.3 m and 3 mm).[2] In all cases, microwaves
include the entire SHF band (3 to 30 GHz, or 10 to 1 cm) at minimum. Frequencies in the microwave
range are often referred to by their IEEE radar band designations: S, C, X, Ku, K, or Ka band, or by
similar NATO or EU designations.
The prefix micro- in microwave is not meant to suggest a wavelength in the micrometer range.
Rather, it indicates that microwaves are "small" (having shorter wavelengths), compared to the radio
waves used prior to microwave technology. The boundaries between far infrared, terahertz radiation,
microwaves, and ultra-high-frequency radio waves are fairly arbitrary and are used variously
between different fields of study.
Microwaves travel by line-of-sight; unlike lower frequency radio waves they do not diffract around
hills, follow the earth's surface as ground waves, or reflect from the ionosphere, so terrestrial
microwave communication links are limited by the visual horizon to about 40 miles (64 km). At the
high end of the band they are absorbed by gases in the atmosphere, limiting practical
communication distances to around a kilometer. Microwaves are widely used in modern technology,
for example in point-to-point communication links, wireless networks, microwave radio
relaynetworks, radar, satellite and spacecraft communication, medical diathermy and cancer
treatment, remote sensing, radio astronomy, particle accelerators, spectroscopy, industrial
heating, collision avoidance systems, garage door openers and keyless entry systems, and for
cooking food in microwave ovens.

Contents

 1Electromagnetic spectrum
 2Propagation
o 2.1Troposcatter
 3Antennas
 4Design and analysis
 5Microwave sources
 6Microwave uses
o 6.1Communication
o 6.2Navigation
o 6.3Radar
o 6.4Radio astronomy
o 6.5Heating and power application
o 6.6Spectroscopy
 7Microwave frequency bands
 8Microwave frequency measurement
 9Effects on health
 10History
o 10.1Hertzian optics
o 10.2First microwave communication experiments
o 10.3Radar
o 10.4Post World War 2
o 10.5Solid state microwave devices
o 10.6Microwave integrated circuits
 11See also
 12References
 13External links

Electromagnetic spectrum
Microwaves occupy a place in the electromagnetic spectrum with frequency above ordinary radio
waves, and below infrared light:

Electromagnetic spectrum

Name Wavelength Frequency (Hz) Photon energy (eV)

Gamma ray < 0.02 nm > 15 EHz > 62.1 keV

X-ray 0.01 nm – 10 nm 30 EHz – 30 PHz 124 keV – 124 eV

Ultraviolet 10 nm – 400 nm 30 PHz – 750 THz 124 eV – 3 eV

Visible light 390 nm – 750 nm 770 THz – 400 THz 3.2 eV – 1.7 eV

Infrared 750 nm – 1 mm 400 THz – 300 GHz 1.7 eV – 1.24 meV

Microwave 1 mm – 1 m 300 GHz – 300 MHz 1.24 meV – 1.24 µeV

Radio 1 mm – 100 km 300 GHz – 3 kHz 1.24 µeV – 12.4 feV

In descriptions of the electromagnetic spectrum, some sources classify microwaves as radio waves,
a subset of the radio wave band; while others classify microwaves and radio waves as distinct types
of radiation. This is an arbitrary distinction.

Propagation
Main article: Radio propagation
Microwaves travel solely by line-of-sight paths; unlike lower frequency radio waves, they do not
travel as ground waves which follow the contour of the Earth, or reflect off
the ionosphere (skywaves).[6] Although at the low end of the band they can pass through building
walls enough for useful reception, usually rights of way cleared to the first Fresnel zoneare required.
Therefore, on the surface of the Earth, microwave communication links are limited by the visual
horizon to about 30–40 miles (48–64 km). Microwaves are absorbed by moisture in the atmosphere,
and the attenuation increases with frequency, becoming a significant factor (rain fade) at the high
end of the band. Beginning at about 40 GHz, atmospheric gases also begin to absorb microwaves,
so above this frequency microwave transmission is limited to a few kilometers. A spectral band
structure causes absorption peaks at specific frequencies (see graph at right). Above 100 GHz, the
absorption of electromagnetic radiation by Earth's atmosphere is so great that it is in effect opaque,
until the atmosphere becomes transparent again in the so-called infrared and optical
window frequency ranges.
Troposcatter
Main article: Tropospheric scatter
In a microwave beam directed at an angle into the sky, a small amount of the power will be randomly
scattered as the beam passes through the troposphere.[6] A sensitive receiver beyond the horizon
with a high gain antenna focused on that area of the troposphere can pick up the signal. This
technique has been used at frequencies between 0.45 and 5 GHz in tropospheric
scatter (troposcatter) communication systems to communicate beyond the horizon, at distances up
to 300 km.

Antennas

Waveguide is used to carry microwaves. Example of waveguidesand a diplexer in an air traffic controlradar

The short wavelengths of microwaves allow omnidirectional antennas for portable devices to be
made very small, from 1 to 20 centimeters long, so microwave frequencies are widely used
for wireless devices such as cell phones, cordless phones, and wireless LANs (Wi-Fi) access
for laptops, and Bluetooth earphones. Antennas used include short whip antennas, rubber ducky
antennas, sleeve dipoles, patch antennas, and increasingly the printed circuit inverted F
antenna (PIFA) used in cell phones.
Their short wavelength also allows narrow beams of microwaves to be produced by conveniently
small high gain antennas from a half meter to 5 meters in diameter. Therefore, beams of microwaves
are used for point-to-point communication links, and for radar. An advantage of narrow beams is that
they don't interfere with nearby equipment using the same frequency, allowing frequency reuse by
nearby transmitters.Parabolic ("dish") antennas are the most widely used directive antennas at
microwave frequencies, but horn antennas, slot antennas and dielectric lens antennas are also
used. Flat microstrip antennas are being increasingly used in consumer devices. Another directive
antenna practical at microwave frequencies is the phased array, a computer-controlled array of
antennas which produces a beam which can be electronically steered in different directions.
At microwave frequencies, the transmission lines which are used to carry lower frequency radio
waves to and from antennas, such as coaxial cable and parallel wire lines, have excessive power
losses, so when low attenuation is required microwaves are carried by metal pipes
called waveguides. Due to the high cost and maintenance requirements of waveguide runs, in many
microwave antennas the output stage of the transmitter or the RF front end of the receiver is located
at the antenna.

Design and analysis

The term microwave also has a more technical meaning in electromagnetics and circuit
theory.[7] Apparatus and techniques may be described qualitatively as "microwave" when the
wavelengths of signals are roughly the same as the dimensions of the circuit, so that lumped-
element circuit theory is inaccurate, and instead distributed circuit elements and transmission-line
theory are more useful methods for design and analysis.
As a consequence, practical microwave circuits tend to move away from the
discrete resistors, capacitors, and inductors used with lower-frequency radio waves. Open-wire and
coaxial transmission lines used at lower frequencies are replaced by waveguides and stripline, and
lumped-element tuned circuits are replaced by cavity resonators or resonant stubs.[7] In turn, at even
higher frequencies, where the wavelength of the electromagnetic waves becomes small in
comparison to the size of the structures used to process them, microwave techniques become
inadequate, and the methods of optics are used.

Microwave sources

Cutaway view inside a cavity magnetron as used in a microwave oven (left). Antenna
splitter: microstriptechniques become increasingly necessary at higher frequencies (right).
Disassembled radar speed gun. The grey assembly attached to the end of the copper-colored horn antenna is
the Gunn diode which generates the microwaves.

High-power microwave sources use specialized vacuum tubes to generate microwaves. These
devices operate on different principles from low-frequency vacuum tubes, using the ballistic motion
of electrons in a vacuum under the influence of controlling electric or magnetic fields, and include
the magnetron (used in microwave ovens), klystron, traveling-wave tube(TWT), and gyrotron. These
devices work in the density modulated mode, rather than the current modulated mode. This means
that they work on the basis of clumps of electrons flying ballistically through them, rather than using
a continuous stream of electrons.
Low-power microwave sources use solid-state devices such as the field-effect transistor (at least at
lower frequencies), tunnel diodes, Gunn diodes, and IMPATT diodes.[8] Low-power sources are
available as benchtop instruments, rackmount instruments, embeddable modules and in card-level
formats. A maser is a solid state device which amplifies microwaves using similar principles to
the laser, which amplifies higher frequency light waves.
All warm objects emit low level microwave black-body radiation, depending on their temperature, so
in meteorology and remote sensing microwave radiometers are used to measure the temperature of
objects or terrain.[9] The sun[10] and other astronomical radio sources such as Cassiopeia A emit low
level microwave radiation which carries information about their makeup, which is studied by radio
astronomers using receivers called radio telescopes.[9] The cosmic microwave background
radiation (CMBR), for example, is a weak microwave noise filling empty space which is a major
source of information on cosmology's Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe.

Microwave uses
Microwave technology is extensively used for point-to-point telecommunications (i.e. non-broadcast
uses). Microwaves are especially suitable for this use since they are more easily focused into
narrower beams than radio waves, allowing frequency reuse; their comparatively higher frequencies
allow broad bandwidth and high data transmission rates, and antenna sizes are smaller than at
lower frequencies because antenna size is inversely proportional to transmitted frequency.
Microwaves are used in spacecraft communication, and much of the world's data, TV, and telephone
communications are transmitted long distances by microwaves between ground stations
and communications satellites. Microwaves are also employed in microwave ovens and
in radar technology.
Communication
A satellite dish on a residence, which receives satellite televisionover a Ku band 12–14 GHz microwave beam
from a direct broadcast communications satellitein a geostationary orbit 35,700 kilometres (22,000 miles)
above the Earth

Main articles: Point-to-point (telecommunications), Microwave transmission, and Satellite

communications
Before the advent of fiber-optic transmission, most long-distance telephone calls were carried via
networks of microwave radio relay links run by carriers such as AT&T Long Lines. Starting in the
early 1950s, frequency division multiplex was used to send up to 5,400 telephone channels on each
microwave radio channel, with as many as ten radio channels combined into one antenna for
the hop to the next site, up to 70 km away.
Wireless LAN protocols, such as Bluetooth and the IEEE 802.11 specifications used for Wi-Fi, also
use microwaves in the 2.4 GHz ISM band, although 802.11a uses ISM band and U-NII frequencies
in the 5 GHz range. Licensed long-range (up to about 25 km) Wireless Internet Access services
have been used for almost a decade in many countries in the 3.5–4.0 GHz range. The FCC
recently[when?] carved out spectrum for carriers that wish to offer services in this range in the U.S. —
with emphasis on 3.65 GHz. Dozens of service providers across the country are securing or have
already received licenses from the FCC to operate in this band. The WIMAX service offerings that
can be carried on the 3.65 GHz band will give business customers another option for connectivity.
Metropolitan area network (MAN) protocols, such as WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for
Microwave Access) are based on standards such as IEEE 802.16, designed to operate between 2
and 11 GHz. Commercial implementations are in the 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz, 3.5 GHz and 5.8 GHz
ranges.
Mobile Broadband Wireless Access (MBWA) protocols based on standards specifications such
as IEEE 802.20 or ATIS/ANSI HC-SDMA (such as iBurst) operate between 1.6 and 2.3 GHz to give
mobility and in-building penetration characteristics similar to mobile phones but with vastly greater
spectral efficiency.[11]
Some mobile phone networks, like GSM, use the low-microwave/high-UHF frequencies around 1.8
and 1.9 GHz in the Americas and elsewhere, respectively. DVB-SH and S-DMB use 1.452 to
1.492 GHz, while proprietary/incompatible satellite radio in the U.S. uses around 2.3 GHz for DARS.
Microwave radio is used in broadcasting and telecommunication transmissions because, due to their
short wavelength, highly directional antennas are smaller and therefore more practical than they
would be at longer wavelengths (lower frequencies). There is also more bandwidth in the microwave
spectrum than in the rest of the radio spectrum; the usable bandwidth below 300 MHz is less than
300 MHz while many GHz can be used above 300 MHz. Typically, microwaves are used in television
news to transmit a signal from a remote location to a television station from a specially equipped
van. See broadcast auxiliary service (BAS), remote pickup unit (RPU), and studio/transmitter
link (STL).
Most satellite communications systems operate in the C, X, Ka, or Ku bands of the microwave
spectrum. These frequencies allow large bandwidth while avoiding the crowded UHF frequencies
and staying below the atmospheric absorption of EHF frequencies. Satellite TV either operates in the
C band for the traditional large dish fixed satellite service or Kuband for direct-broadcast satellite.
Military communications run primarily over X or Ku-band links, with Ka band being used for Milstar.
Navigation
Further information: Satellite navigation and Navigation
Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) including the Chinese Beidou, the American Global
Positioning System (introduced in 1978) and the Russian GLONASS broadcast navigational signals
in various bands between about 1.2 GHz and 1.6 GHz.
Radar

The parabolic antenna (lower curved surface) of an ASR-9 airport surveillance radar which radiates a narrow
vertical fan-shaped beam of 2.7–2.9 GHz (S band) microwaves to locate aircraft in the airspace surrounding an
airport.

Main article: Radar

Radar is a radiolocation technique in which a beam of radio waves emitted by a transmitter bounces
off an object and returns to a receiver, allowing the location, range, speed, and other characteristics
of the object to be determined. The short wavelength of microwaves causes large reflections from
objects the size of motor vehicles, ships and aircraft. Also, at these wavelengths, the high gain
antennas such as parabolic antennas which are required to produce the narrow beamwidths needed
to accurately locate objects are conveniently small, allowing them to be rapidly turned to scan for
objects. Therefore, microwave frequencies are the main frequencies used in radar. Microwave radar
is widely used for applications such as air traffic control, weather forecasting, navigation of ships,
and speed limit enforcement. Long distance radars use the lower microwave frequencies since at
the upper end of the band atmospheric absorption limits the range, but millimeter waves are used for
short range radar such as collision avoidance systems.
Some of the dish antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) a radio telescope located in northern
Chile. It receives microwaves in the millimeter wave range, 31 – 1000 GHz.

Maps of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR), showing the improved resolution which has
been achieved with better microwave radio telescopes

Radio astronomy
Main article: radio astronomy
Microwaves emitted by astronomical radio sources; planets, stars, galaxies, and nebulas are studied
in radio astronomy with large dish antennas called radio telescopes. In addition to receiving naturally
occurring microwave radiation, radio telescopes have been used in active radar experiments to
bounce microwaves off planets in the solar system, to determine the distance to the Moon or map
the invisible surface of Venusthrough cloud cover.
A recently completed microwave radio telescope is the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, located at
more than 5,000 meters (16,597 ft) altitude in Chile, observes the universe in the millimetre and
submillimetre wavelength ranges. The world's largest ground-based astronomy project to date, it
consists of more than 66 dishes and was built in an international collaboration by Europe, North
America, East Asia and Chile.[12][13]
A major recent focus of microwave radio astronomy has been mapping the cosmic microwave
background radiation (CMBR) discovered in 1964 by radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert
Wilson. This faint background radiation, which fills the universe and is almost the same in all
directions, is "relic radiation" from the Big Bang, and is one of the few sources of information about
conditions in the early universe. Due to the expansion and thus cooling of the Universe, the originally
high-energy radiation has been shifted into the microwave region of the radio spectrum. Sufficiently
sensitive radio telescopes can detected the CMBR as a faint signal that is not associated with any
star, galaxy, or other object.[14]
Heating and power application
Small microwave oven on a kitchen counter

Microwaves are widely used for heating in industrial processes. A microwave tunnel oven for softening plastic
rods prior to extrusion.

A microwave oven passes microwave radiation at a frequency near 2.45 GHz (12 cm)through food,
causing dielectric heating primarily by absorption of the energy in water. Microwave ovens became
common kitchen appliances in Western countries in the late 1970s, following the development of
less expensive cavity magnetrons. Water in the liquid state possesses many molecular interactions
that broaden the absorption peak. In the vapor phase, isolated water molecules absorb at around
22 GHz, almost ten times the frequency of the microwave oven.
Microwave heating is used in industrial processes for drying and curing products.
Many semiconductor processing techniques use microwaves to generate plasma for such purposes
as reactive ion etching and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD).
Microwave frequencies typically ranging from 110 – 140 GHz are used
in stellarators and tokamak experimental fusion reactors to help heat the fuel into a plasma state.
The upcoming ITER thermonuclear reactor[15] is expected to range from 110–170 GHz and will
employ electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH).[16]
Microwaves can be used to transmit power over long distances, and post-World War II research was
done to examine possibilities. NASAworked in the 1970s and early 1980s to research the
possibilities of using solar power satellite (SPS) systems with large solar arrays that would beam
power down to the Earth's surface via microwaves.
Less-than-lethal weaponry exists that uses millimeter waves to heat a thin layer of human skin to an
intolerable temperature so as to make the targeted person move away. A two-second burst of the
95 GHz focused beam heats the skin to a temperature of 54 °C (129 °F) at a depth of 0.4 millimetres
(1⁄64 in). The United States Air Force and Marines are currently using this type of active denial
system in fixed installations.[17]
Spectroscopy
Microwave radiation is used in electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR or ESR) spectroscopy,
typically in the X-band region (~9 GHz) in conjunction typically with magnetic fields of 0.3 T. This
technique provides information on unpaired electrons in chemical systems, such as free
radicals or transition metal ions such as Cu(II). Microwave radiation is also used to perform rotational
spectroscopy and can be combined with electrochemistry as in microwave enhanced
electrochemistry.

Microwave frequency bands

Rough plot of Earth's atmospheric transmittance (or opacity) to various wavelengths of electromagnetic
radiation. Microwaves are strongly absorbed at wavelengths shorter than about 1.5 cm (above 20 GHz) by
water and other molecules in the air.

Bands of frequencies in the microwave spectrum are designated by letters. Unfortunately, there are
several incompatible band designation systems, and even within a system the frequency ranges
corresponding to some of the letters vary somewhat between different application fields.[18][19] The
letter system had its origin in World War 2 in a top secret U.S. classification of bands used in radar
sets; this is the origin of the oldest letter system, the IEEE radar bands. One set of microwave
frequency bands designations by the Radio Society of Great Britain(RSGB), is tabulated below:

ITU radio bands

1 (ELF) 2 (SLF) 3 (ULF) 4 (VLF)

5 (LF) 6 (MF) 7 (HF) 8 (VHF)
9 (UHF) 10 (SHF) 11 (EHF) 12 (THF)

EU / NATO / US ECM radio bands

 A
 B
 C
 D
 E
 F
 G
 H
 I
 J
 K
 L
 M
 N

IEEE radio bands

 HF
 VHF
 UHF
 L
 S
 C
 X
 Ku
 K
 Ka
 V
 W
 mm

Other TV and radio bands

 I
 II
 III
 IV
 V
 VI

 v
 t
 e

Microwave frequency bands

Frequency Wavelength
Designation Typical uses
range range

15 cm to military telemetry, GPS, mobile phones (GSM), amateur

L band 1 to 2 GHz
30 cm radio

weather radar, surface ship radar, and some

7.5 cm to communications satellites (microwave ovens, microwave
S band 2 to 4 GHz
15 cm devices/communications, radio astronomy, mobile phones,
wireless LAN, Bluetooth, ZigBee, GPS, amateur radio)

3.75 cm to
C band 4 to 8 GHz long-distance radio telecommunications
7.5 cm

satellite communications, radar, terrestrial broadband, space

25 mm to
X band 8 to 12 GHz communications, amateur radio, molecular rotational
37.5 mm
spectroscopy

12 to 16.7 mm to
Ku band satellite communications, molecular rotational spectroscopy
18 GHz 25 mm

18 to 11.3 mm to radar, satellite communications, astronomical observations,

K band
26.5 GHz 16.7 mm automotive radar, molecular rotational spectroscopy

26.5 to 5.0 mm to
Ka band satellite communications, molecular rotational spectroscopy
40 GHz 11.3 mm

satellite communications, terrestrial microwave

33 to 6.0 mm to
Q band communications, radio astronomy, automotive radar,
50 GHz 9.0 mm
molecular rotational spectroscopy
40 to 5.0 mm to
U band
60 GHz 7.5 mm

50 to 4.0 mm to millimeter wave radar research, molecular rotational

V band
75 GHz 6.0 mm spectroscopy and other kinds of scientific research

satellite communications, millimeter-wave radar research,

75 to 2.7 mm to
W band military radar targeting and tracking applications, and some
110 GHz 4.0 mm
non-military applications, automotive radar

SHF transmissions: Radio astronomy, microwave

90 to 2.1 mm to devices/communications, wireless LAN, most modern
F band
140 GHz 3.3 mm radars, communications satellites, satellite television
broadcasting, DBS, amateur radio

EHF transmissions: Radio astronomy, high-frequency

110 to 1.8 mm to
D band microwave radio relay, microwave remote sensing, amateur
170 GHz 2.7 mm
radio, directed-energy weapon, millimeter wave scanner

P band is sometimes used for Ku Band. "P" for "previous" was a radar band used in the UK ranging
from 250 to 500 MHz and now obsolete per IEEE Std 521.[20][21][22]
When radars were first developed at K band during World War II, it was not known that there was a
nearby absorption band (due to water vapor and oxygen in the atmosphere). To avoid this problem,
the original K band was split into a lower band, Ku, and upper band, Ka.[23]

Microwave frequency measurement

Absorption wavemeter for measuring in the Ku band.

Microwave frequency can be measured by either electronic or mechanical techniques.
Frequency counters or high frequency heterodyne systems can be used. Here the unknown
frequency is compared with harmonics of a known lower frequency by use of a low frequency
generator, a harmonic generator and a mixer. Accuracy of the measurement is limited by the
accuracy and stability of the reference source.
Mechanical methods require a tunable resonator such as an absorption wavemeter, which has a
known relation between a physical dimension and frequency.
In a laboratory setting, Lecher lines can be used to directly measure the wavelength on a
transmission line made of parallel wires, the frequency can then be calculated. A similar technique is
to use a slotted waveguide or slotted coaxial line to directly measure the wavelength. These devices
consist of a probe introduced into the line through a longitudinal slot, so that the probe is free to
travel up and down the line. Slotted lines are primarily intended for measurement of the voltage
standing wave ratio on the line. However, provided a standing wave is present, they may also be
used to measure the distance between the nodes, which is equal to half the wavelength. Precision of
this method is limited by the determination of the nodal locations.

Effects on health
Further information: Electromagnetic radiation and health and Microwave burn
Microwaves do not contain sufficient energy to chemically change substances by ionization, and so
are an example of non-ionizing radiation.[24] The word "radiation" refers to energy radiating from a
source and not to radioactivity. It has not been shown conclusively that microwaves (or other non-
ionizing electromagnetic radiation) have significant adverse biological effects at low levels. Some,
but not all, studies suggest that long-term exposure may have a carcinogenic effect.[25] This is
separate from the risks associated with very high-intensity exposure, which can cause heating and
burns like any heat source, and not a unique property of microwaves specifically.
During World War II, it was observed that individuals in the radiation path of radar installations
experienced clicks and buzzing sounds in response to microwave radiation. This microwave auditory
effect was thought to be caused by the microwaves inducing an electric current in the hearing
centers of the brain.[26] Research by NASA in the 1970s has shown this to be caused by thermal
expansion in parts of the inner ear. In 1955 Dr. James Lovelock was able to reanimate rats chilled to
0-1°C using microwave diathermy.[27]
When injury from exposure to microwaves occurs, it usually results from dielectric heating induced in
the body. Exposure to microwave radiation can produce cataracts by this mechanism,[28] because the
microwave heating denatures proteins in the crystalline lens of the eye (in the same way that heat
turns egg whites white and opaque). The lens and cornea of the eye are especially vulnerable
because they contain no blood vessels that can carry away heat. Exposure to heavy doses of
microwave radiation (as from an oven that has been tampered with to allow operation even with the
door open) can produce heat damage in other tissues as well, up to and including serious burns that
may not be immediately evident because of the tendency for microwaves to heat deeper tissues with
higher moisture content.
Eleanor R. Adair conducted microwave health research by exposing herself, animals and humans to
microwave levels that made them feel warm or even start to sweat and feel quite uncomfortable. She
found no adverse health effects other than heat.

History
Hertzian optics
Microwaves were first generated in the 1880s and 1890s in some of the earliest radio experiments
by physicists who thought of them as a form of "invisible light".[29] James Clerk Maxwell in his 1873
theory of electromagnetism, now called Maxwell's equations, had predicted the existence
of electromagnetic waves and proposed that light was composed of these waves. In 1888, German
physicist Heinrich Hertz was the first to demonstrate the existence of radio waves using a
primitive spark gap radio transmitter.[30] Hertz and the other early radio researchers were interested
in exploring the similarities between radio waves and light waves, to test Maxwell's theory. They
concentrated on producing short wavelength radio waves in the UHF and microwave ranges, with
which they could duplicate classic optics experiments, using quasioptical components such
as prisms and lenses made of paraffin, sulfur and pitch and wire diffraction gratings, to refract and
diffract radio waves like light rays.[31] Hertz produced waves up to 450 MHz; his directional 450 MHz
transmitter consisted of a 26 cm brass rod dipole antenna with a spark gap between the ends
suspended at the focal line of a parabolic antenna made of a curved zinc sheet, powered by high
voltage pulses from an induction coil.[30] His historic experiments demonstrated that radio waves like
light exhibited refraction, diffraction, polarization, interference and standing waves,[31] proving that
radio waves and light waves were both forms of Maxwell's electromagnetic waves.

Heinrich Hertz's 450 MHz spark transmitter, 1888, consisting of 23 cm dipole and spark gap at focus
of parabolic reflector

 Jagadish Chandra Bose in 1894 was the first person to produce millimeter waves; his spark
oscillator (in box, right) generated 60 GHz (5 mm) waves using 3 mm metal ball resonators.

Experiment by John Ambrose Fleming in 1897 showing refraction of 1.4 GHz microwaves by
paraffin prism.


1.2 GHz microwave spark transmitter (left) and cohererreceiver (right) used by Guglielmo
Marconi during his 1895 experiments had a range of 6.5 km (4.0 mi)
In 1894, Oliver Lodge and Augusto Righi generated 1.5 and 12 GHz microwaves respectively with
small metal ball spark resonators.[31] The same year Indian physicist Jagadish Chandra Bose was
the first person to produce millimeter waves, generating 60 GHz (5 millimeter) microwaves using a
3 mm metal ball spark oscillator.[32][31] Bose also invented waveguide and horn antennas for use in his
experiments. Russian physicist Pyotr Lebedev in 1895 generated 50 GHz millimeter waves.[31] In
1897 Lord Rayleigh solved the mathematical boundary-value problem of electromagnetic waves
propagating through conducting tubes and dielectric rods of arbitrary shape.[33][34][35][36] which gave the
modes and cutoff frequency of microwaves propagating through a waveguide.[30]
However, since microwaves were limited to line of sight paths, they could not communicate beyond
the visual horizon, and the low power of the spark transmitters then in use limited their practical
range to a few miles. The subsequent development of radio communication after 1896 employed
lower frequencies, which could travel beyond the horizon as ground waves and by reflecting off
the ionosphere as skywaves, and microwave frequencies were not further explored at this time.
First microwave communication experiments
Practical use of microwave frequencies did not occur until the 1940s and 1950s due to a lack of
adequate sources, since the triode vacuum tube (valve) electronic oscillator used in radio
transmitters could not produce frequencies above a few hundred megahertz due to excessive
electron transit time and interelectrode capacitance.[30] By the 1930s, the first low power microwave
vacuum tubes had been developed using new principles; the Barkhausen-Kurz tube and the split-
anode magnetron.[30] These could generate a few watts of power at frequencies up to a few
gigahertz, and were used in the first experiments in communication with microwaves.

Antennas of 1931 experimental 1.7 GHz microwave relay link across the English Channel.


Experimental 700 MHz transmitter 1932 at Westinghouse labs transmits voice over a mile.
In 1931 an Anglo-French consortium demonstrated the first experimental microwave relay link,
across the English Channel 40 miles (64 km) between Dover, UK and Calais, France.[37][38] The
system transmitted telephony, telegraph and facsimile data over bidirectional 1.7 GHz beams with a
power of one-half watt, produced by miniature Barkhausen-Kurz tubes at the focus of 10-foot (3 m)
metal dishes.
A word was needed to distinguish these new shorter wavelengths, which had previously been
lumped into the "short wave" band, which meant all waves shorter than 200 meters. The
terms quasi-optical waves and ultrashort waves were used briefly, but didn't catch on. The first
usage of the word micro-wave apparently occurred in 1931.[38][39]
Radar
The development of radar, mainly in secrecy, before and during World War 2, resulted in the
technological advances which made microwaves practical.[30] Radar antennas small enough to fit on
aircraft which had a narrow enough beamwidth to localize enemy aircraft required wavelengths in
the centimeter range. It was found that conventional transmission lines used to carry radio waves
had excessive power losses at microwave frequencies, and George Southworth at Bell
Labs and Wilmer Barrow at MIT independently invented waveguide in 1936.[33] Barrow invented
the horn antenna in 1938 as a means to efficiently radiate microwaves into or out of a waveguide. In
a microwave receiver, a nonlinearcomponent was needed that would act as a detector and mixer at
these frequencies, as vacuum tubes had too much capacitance. To fill this need researchers
resurrected an obsolete technology, the point contact crystal detector (cat whisker detector) which
was used as a demodulator in crystal radios around the turn of the century before vacuum tube
receivers.[30][40] The low capacitance of semiconductor junctions allowed them to function at
microwave frequencies. The first modern silicon and germanium diodes were developed as
microwave detectors in the 1930s, and the principles of semiconductor physics learned during their
development led to semiconductor electronics after the war.[30]


Southworth (at left) demonstrating waveguide at IRE meeting in 1938, showing 1.5 GHz
microwaves passing through the 7.5 m flexible metal hose registering on a diode detector.

The first modern horn antenna in 1938 with inventor Wilmer L. Barrow

AN/APS-4 10 GHz air intercept radar used on US and British warplanes in World War 2

Mobile US Army microwave relay station 1945 demonstrating relay systems using frequencies from
100 MHz to 4.9 GHz which could transmit up to 8 phone calls on a beam.
The first powerful sources of microwaves were invented at the beginning of World War 2:
the klystron tube by Russell and Sigurd Varian at Stanford University in 1937, and the cavity
magnetron tube by John Randall and Harry Boot at Birmingham University, UK in 1940.[30] Britain's
1940 decision to share its microwave technology with the US (the Tizard Mission) significantly
influenced the outcome of the war. The MIT Radiation Laboratory established secretly
at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1940 to research radar, produced much of the
theoretical knowledge necessary to use microwaves. By 1943, 10 centimeter (3 GHz) radar was in
use on British and American warplanes. The first microwave relay systems were developed by the
Allied military near the end of the war and used for secure battlefield communication networks in the
European theater.
Post World War 2
After World War 2, microwaves were rapidly exploited commercially.[30] Due to their high frequency
they had a very large information-carrying capacity (bandwidth); a single microwave beam could
carry tens of thousands of phone calls. In the 1950s and 60s transcontinental microwave
relay networks were built in the US and Europe to exchange telephone calls between cities and
distribute television programs. In the new television broadcasting industry, from the 1940s
microwave dishes were used to transmit backhaul video feed from mobile production trucks back to
the studio, allowing the first remote TV broadcasts. The first communications satellites were
launched in the 1960s, which relayed telephone calls and television between widely separated
points on Earth using microwave beams. In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson while
investigating noise in a satellite horn antenna at Bell Labs, Holmdel, New Jersey discovered cosmic
microwave background radiation.

C-band horn antennas at a telephone switching center in Seattle, belonging to AT&T's Long Lines microwave
relay network built in the 1960s.

Microwave lens antenna used in the radar for the 1954 Nike Ajax anti-aircraft missile
The first commercial microwave oven, Amana's Radarange, in kitchen of US aircraft carrier Savannah in 1961

Microwave radar became the central technology used in air traffic control, maritime navigation, anti-
aircraft defense, ballistic missile detection, and later many other uses. Radar and satellite
communication motivated the development of modern microwave antennas; the parabolic
antenna (the most common type), cassegrain antenna, lens antenna, slot antenna, and phased
array.
The ability of short waves to quickly heat materials and cook food had been investigated in the
1930s by I. F. Mouromtseff at Westinghouse, and at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair demonstrated
cooking meals with a 60 MHz radio transmitter.[41] In 1945 Percy Spencer, an engineer working on
radar at Raytheon, noticed that microwave radiation from a magnetron oscillator melted a candy bar
in his pocket. He investigated cooking with microwaves and invented the microwave oven, consisting
of a magnetron feeding microwaves into a closed metal cavity containing food, which was patented
by Raytheon on 8 October 1945. Due to their expense microwave ovens were initially used in
institutional kitchens, but by 1986 roughly 25% of households in the U.S. owned one. Microwave
heating became widely used as an industrial process in industries such as plastics fabrication, and
as a medical therapy to kill cancer cells in microwave hyperthermy.
The traveling wave tube (TWT) developed in 1943 by Rudolph Kompfner and John Pierce provided
a high-power tunable source of microwaves up to 50 GHz, and became the most widely used
microwave tube (besides the ubiquitous magnetron used in microwave ovens). The gyrotron tube
family developed in Russia could produce megawatts of power up into millimeter wave frequencies,
and is used in industrial heating and plasma research, and to power particle accelerators and
nuclear fusion reactors.
Solid state microwave devices

Radar speed gun. At the right end of the copper horn antenna is the Gunn diode (grey assembly) which
generates the microwaves.

The development of semiconductor electronics in the 1950s led to the first solid state microwave
devices which worked by a new principle; negative resistance (some of the prewar microwave tubes
had also used negative resistance).[30] The feedback oscillator and two-portamplifiers which were
used at lower frequencies became unstable at microwave frequencies, and negative
resistance oscillators and amplifiers based on one-port devices like diodes worked better.
The tunnel diode invented in 1957 by Japanese physicist Leo Esaki could produce a few milliwatts of
microwave power. Its invention set off a search for better negative resistance semiconductor devices
for use as microwave oscillators, resulting in the invention of the IMPATT diodein 1956 by W.T.
Read and Ralph L. Johnston and the Gunn diode in 1962 by J. B. Gunn.[30] Diodes are the most
widely used microwave sources today. Two low-noise solid state negative resistance
microwave amplifiers were developed; the ruby maser invented in 1953 by Charles H.
Townes, James P. Gordon, and H. J. Zeiger, and the varactor parametric amplifier developed in
1956 by Marion Hines.[30] These were used for low noise microwave receivers in radio telescopes
and satellite ground stations. The maser led to the development of atomic clocks, which keep time
using a precise microwave frequency emitted by atoms undergoing an electron transition between
two energy levels. Negative resistance amplifier circuits required the invention of
new nonreciprocal waveguide components, such as circulators, isolators, and directional couplers. In
1969 Kurokawa derived mathematical conditions for stability in negative resistance circuits which
formed the basis of microwave oscillator design.[42]
Microwave integrated circuits

ku band microstripcircuit used in satellite television dish.

Prior to the 1970s microwave devices and circuits were bulky and expensive, so microwave
frequencies were generally limited to the output stage of transmitters and the RF front end of
receivers, and signals were heterodyned to a lower intermediate frequency for processing. The
period from the 1970s to the present has seen the development of tiny inexpensive active solid state
microwave components which can be mounted on circuit boards, allowing circuits to perform
significant signal processing at microwave frequencies. This has made possible satellite
television, cable television, GPSdevices, and modern wireless devices, such as smartphones, Wi-Fi,
and Bluetooth which connect to networks using microwaves.
Microstrip, a type of transmission line usable at microwave frequencies, was invented with printed
circuits in the 1950s.[30] The ability to cheaply fabricate a wide range of shapes on printed circuit
boards allowed microstrip versions of capacitors, inductors, resonant stubs, splitters, directional
couplers, diplexers, filters and antennas to be made, thus allowing compact microwave circuits to be
constructed.[30]
Transistors that operated at microwave frequencies were developed in the 1970s. The
semiconductor gallium arsenide (GaAs) has a much higher electron mobility than silicon,[30] so
devices fabricated with this material can operate at 4 times the frequency of similar devices of
silicon. Beginning in the 1970s GaAs was used to make the first microwave transistors,[30] and it has
dominated microwave semiconductors ever since. MESFETs (metal-semiconductor field-effect
transistors), fast GaAs field effect transistors using Schottky junctions for the gate, were developed
starting in 1968 and have reached cutoff frequencies of 100 GHz, and are now the most widely used
active microwave devices.[30] Another family of transistors with a higher frequency limit is the HEMT
(high electron mobility transistor), a field effect transistor made with two different semiconductors,
AlGaAs and GaAs, using heterojunction technology, and the similar HBT (heterojunction bipolar
transistor).[30]
GaAs can be made semi-insulating, allowing it to be used as a substrate on which circuits
containing passive components as well as transistors can be fabricated by lithography.[30]By 1976
this led to the first integrated circuits (ICs) which functioned at microwave frequencies,
called monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMIC).[30] The word "monolithic" was added to
distinguish these from microstrip PCB circuits, which were called "microwave integrated circuits"
(MIC). Since then silicon MMICs have also been developed. Today MMICs have become the
workhorses of both analog and digital high frequency electronics, enabling the production of single
chip microwave receivers, broadband amplifiers, modems, and microprocessors.