title: Does human skin truly behave as an array of helical antennae in the millimeter and terahertz wave ranges?
abstract: The sweat ducts of the human perspiration system are helically shaped tubes, filled with a conductive aqueous solution. Recent studies have claimed that these ducts act as an array of low-Q helical antennae and are dominant in shaping the spectral response in the subterahertz region. Using local homogenization theory for the skin embedded with sweat ducts, we found that multiple interference effects from the skin layers play the major role in determining the skin electromagnetic characteristics in the millimeter and terahertz regions without the need for the assumption of the sweat ducts acting as low-Q helical antennae.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electro-Optic Engineering and Ilse Katz Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ney
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Abdulhalim
mesh_terms: D017097:Electric Impedance; D004574:Electromagnetic Fields; D004817:Epidermis / Q000528:radiation effects; D006801:Humans; D012867:Skin / Q000528:radiation effects*; D013545:Sweat Glands / Q000528:radiation effects