Jean-Paul Guillet, Professor at Université de Bordeaux and visiting Professor at UCLA, and Mona Jarrahi, Professor and Northrop Grumman Endowed Chair at UCLA, gave a talk about the Terahertz Waves. This frequency band between the radio and infrared can be used as a cutting-edge non-destructive evaluation method in many fields, and especially in Art and Heritage.

While everyone is familiar with radio waves, infrared, visible light and X-rays, a frequency band of electromagnetic waves has remained little known for a long time because of the difficulties in generating such waves and using them: Terahertz waves.

This booming research field has many applications, such as the identification of gases in space (JUICE mission, Herschel telescope), future 6G telecommunications or non-destructive testing applications recently used in the industry.

These waves have the ability to penetrate matter, so we can use them to analyse art works or heritage samples. We can thus see through a painting, for example to help with restoration by identifying signs of deteriorations due to time, otherwise invisible.

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The speakers

Editor : Clara Devouassoux, Deputy attachée for Science and Technology at the Consulate of France in Los Angeles, [email protected]