The microwave region extends from 1,000 to 300,000 MHz (or 30 cm to 1 mm wavelength). Although microwaves were first produced and studied in 1886 by Hertz, their practical application had to await the invention of suitable generators, such as the klystron and magnetron.

Microwaves are the principal carriers of high-speed data transmissions between stations on Earth and also between ground-based stations and satellites and space probes. A system of synchronous satellites about 36,000 km above Earth is used for international broadband of all kinds of communications—e.g., television and telephone.

Microwave transmitters and receivers are parabolic dish antennas. They produce microwave beams whose spreading angle is proportional to the ratio of the wavelength of the constituent waves to the diameter of the dish. The beams can thus be directed like a searchlight. Radar beams consist of short pulses of microwaves. One can determine the distance of an airplane or ship by measuring the time it takes such a pulse to travel to the object and, after reflection, back to the radar dish antenna. Moreover, by making use of the change in frequency of the reflected wave pulse caused by the Doppler effect (see above Speed of electromagnetic radiation and the Doppler effect), one can measure the speed of objects. Microwave radar is therefore widely used for guiding airplanes and vessels and for detecting speeding motorists. Microwaves can penetrate clouds of smoke but are scattered by water droplets, so they are used for mapping meteorologic disturbances and in weather forecasting.

Microwaves play an increasingly wide role in heating and cooking food. They are absorbed by water and fat in foodstuffs (e.g., in the tissue of meats) and produce heat from the inside. In most cases, this reduces the cooking time a hundredfold. Such dry objects as glass and ceramics, on the other hand, are not heated in the process, and metal foils are not penetrated at all.

The heating effect of microwaves destroys living tissue when the temperature of the tissue exceeds 43° C (109° F). Accordingly, exposure to intense microwaves in excess of 20 milliwatts of power per square centimetre of body surface is harmful. The lens of the human eye is particularly affected by waves with a frequency of 3000 MHz, and repeated and extended exposure can result in cataracts. Radio waves and microwaves of far less power (microwatts per square centimetre) than the 10–20 milliwatts per square centimetre needed to produce heating in living tissue can have adverse effects on the electrochemical balance of the brain and the development of a fetus if these waves are modulated or pulsed at low frequencies between 5 and 100 hertz, which are of the same magnitude as brain wave frequencies.

Various types of microwave generators and amplifiers have been developed. Vacuum-tube devices, the klystron and the magnetron, continue to be used on a wide scale, especially for higher-power applications. Klystrons are primarily employed as amplifiers in radio relay systems and for dielectric heating, while magnetrons have been adopted for radar systems and microwave ovens. (For a detailed discussion of these devices, see electron tube.) Solid-state technology has yielded several devices capable of producing, amplifying, detecting, and controlling microwaves. Notable among these are the Gunn diode and the tunnel (or Esaki) diode. Another type of device, the maser (acronym for “microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”) has proved useful in such areas as radio astronomy, microwave radiometry, and long-distance communications.

Astronomers have discovered what appears to be natural masers in some interstellar clouds. Observations of radio radiation from interstellar hydrogen (H₂) and certain other molecules indicate amplification by the maser process. Also, as was mentioned above, microwave cosmic background radiation has been detected and is considered by many to be the remnant of the primeval fireball postulated by the big-bang cosmological model.

Infrared radiation

Beyond the red end of the visible range but at frequencies higher than those of radar waves and microwaves is the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, between frequencies of 10¹² and 5 × 10¹⁴ Hz (or wavelengths from 0.1 to 7.5 × 10⁻⁵ cm). William Herschel, a German-born British musician and self-taught astronomer, discovered this form of radiation in 1800 by exploring, with the aid of a thermometer, sunlight dispersed into its colours by a glass prism. Infrared radiation is absorbed and emitted by the rotations and vibrations of chemically bonded atoms or groups of atoms and thus by many kinds of materials. For instance, window glass that is transparent to visible light absorbs infrared radiation by the vibration of its constituent atoms. Infrared radiation is strongly absorbed by water, as shown in Figure 3, and by the atmosphere. Although invisible to the eye, infrared radiation can be detected as warmth by the skin. Nearly 50 percent of the Sun’s radiant energy is emitted in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, with the rest primarily in the visible region.

Atmospheric haze and certain pollutants that scatter visible light are nearly transparent to parts of the infrared spectrum because the scattering efficiency increases with the fourth power of the frequency. Infrared photography of distant objects from the air takes advantage of this phenomenon. For the same reason, infrared astronomy enables researchers to observe cosmic objects through large clouds of interstellar dust that scatter infrared radiation substantially less than visible light. However, since water vapour, ozone, and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere absorb large parts of the infrared spectrum, many infrared astronomical observations are carried out at high altitude by balloons, rockets, aircraft, or spacecraft.

An infrared photograph of a landscape enhances objects according to their heat emission: blue sky and water appear nearly black, whereas green foliage and unexposed skin show up brightly. Infrared photography can reveal pathological tissue growths (thermography) and defects in electronic systems and circuits due to their increased emission of heat.

The infrared absorption and emission characteristics of molecules and materials yield important information about the size, shape, and chemical bonding of molecules and of atoms and ions in solids. The energies of rotation and vibration are quantized in all systems. The infrared radiation energy hν emitted or absorbed by a given molecule or substance is therefore a measure of the difference of some of the internal energy states. These in turn are determined by the atomic weight and molecular bonding forces. For this reason, infrared spectroscopy is a powerful tool for determining the internal structure of molecules and substances or, when such information is already known and tabulated, for identifying the amounts of those species in a given sample. Infrared spectroscopic techniques are often used to determine the composition and hence the origin and age of archaeological specimens and for detecting forgeries of art and other objects, which, when inspected under visible light, resemble the originals.

Infrared radiation plays an important role in heat transfer and is integral to the so-called greenhouse effect (see above The greenhouse effect of the atmosphere), influencing the thermal radiation budget of Earth on a global scale and affecting nearly all biospheric activity. Virtually every object at Earth’s surface emits electromagnetic radiation primarily in the infrared region of the spectrum.

Artificial sources of infrared radiation include, besides hot objects, infrared light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and lasers. LEDs are small inexpensive optoelectronic devices made of such semiconducting materials as gallium arsenide. Infrared LEDs are employed as optoisolators and as light sources in some fibre-optics-based communications systems. Powerful optically pumped infrared lasers have been developed by using carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Carbon dioxide infrared lasers are used to induce and alter chemical reactions and in isotope separation. They also are employed in lidar systems. Other applications of infrared light include its use in the range finders of automatic self-focusing cameras, security alarm systems, and night-vision optical instruments.

Instruments for detecting infrared radiation include heat-sensitive devices such as thermocouple detectors, bolometers (some of these are cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero so that the thermal radiation of the detector system itself is greatly reduced), photovoltaic cells, and photoconductors. The latter are made of semiconductor materials (e.g., silicon and lead sulfide) whose electrical conductance increases when exposed to infrared radiation.

Visible radiation

Visible light is the most familiar form of electromagnetic radiation and makes up that portion of the spectrum to which the eye is sensitive. This span is very narrow; the frequencies of violet light are only about twice those of red. The corresponding wavelengths extend from 7 × 10⁻⁵ cm (red) to 4 × 10⁻⁵ cm (violet). The energy of a photon from the centre of the visible spectrum (yellow) is hν = 2.2 eV. This is one million times larger than the energy of a photon of a television wave and one billion times larger than that of radio waves in general (see Figure 1).

Life on Earth could not exist without visible light, which represents the peak of the Sun’s spectrum and close to one-half of all of its radiant energy. Visible light is essential for photosynthesis, which enables plants to produce the carbohydrates and proteins that are the food sources for animals. Coal and oil are sources of energy accumulated from sunlight in plants and microorganisms millions of years ago, and hydroelectric power is extracted from one step of the hydrologic cycle kept in motion by sunlight at the present time.

Considering the importance of visible sunlight for all aspects of terrestrial life, one cannot help being awed by the absorption spectrum of water in Figure 3. The remarkable transparency of water centred in the narrow regime of visible light, indicated by vertical dashed lines in Figure 3, is the result of the characteristic distribution of internal energy states of water. Absorption is strong toward the infrared on account of molecular vibrations and intermolecular oscillations. In the ultraviolet region, absorption of radiation is caused by electronic excitations. Light of frequencies having absorption coefficients larger than α = 10 cm⁻¹ cannot even reach the retina of the human eye, because its constituent liquid consists mainly of water that absorbs such frequencies of light.

Since the 1970s an increasing number of devices have been developed for converting sunlight into electricity. Unlike various conventional energy sources, solar energy does not become depleted by use and does not pollute the environment. Two branches of development may be noted—namely, photothermal and photovoltaic technologies. In photothermal devices, sunlight is used to heat a substance, as, for example, water, to produce steam with which to drive a generator. Photovoltaic devices, on the other hand, convert the energy in sunlight directly to electricity by use of the photovoltaic effect in a semiconductor junction. Solar panels consisting of photovoltaic devices made of gallium arsenide have conversion efficiencies of more than 20 percent and are used to provide electric power in many satellites and space probes. Solar cells have replaced dry-cell batteries in some portable electronic instruments, and solar energy power stations of more than 500 megawatts capacity have been built.

The intensity and spectral composition of visible light can be measured and recorded by essentially any process or property that is affected by light. Detectors make use of a photographic process based on silver halide, the photoemission of electrons from metal surfaces, the generation of electric current in a photovoltaic cell, and the increase in electrical conduction in semiconductors.

Glass fibres constitute an effective means of guiding and transmitting light. A beam of light is confined by total internal reflection to travel inside such an optical fibre, whose thickness may be anywhere between one hundredth of a millimetre and a few millimetres. Many thin optical fibres can be combined into bundles to achieve image reproduction. The flexibility of these fibres or fibre bundles permits their use in medicine for optical exploration of internal organs. Optical fibres connecting the continents provide the capability to transmit substantially larger amounts of information than other systems of international telecommunications. Another advantage of optical fibre communication systems is that transmissions cannot easily be intercepted and are not disturbed by lower atmospheric and stratospheric disturbances.

Optical fibres integrated with miniature semiconductor lasers and light-emitting diodes, as well as with light detector arrays and photoelectronic imaging and recording materials, form the building blocks of a new optoelectronics industry. Some familiar commercial products are optoelectronic copying machines, laser printers, compact disc players, optical recording media, and optical disc mass-storage systems of exceedingly high bit density.