Note: This study found no significant biological effects under its experimental conditions. We include all studies for scientific completeness.
Comparison of dose dependences for bioeffects of continuous-wave and high-peak power microwave emissions using gel-suspended cell cultures.
Pakhomov AG, Gaj ek P, Allen L, Stuck BE, Murphy MR · 2002
View Original AbstractExtremely high-power microwave pulses produced identical biological effects to continuous waves, supporting thermal-only mechanisms at these frequencies.
Plain English Summary
Researchers exposed yeast cell cultures to extremely high-powered microwave pulses (250,000 watts peak power) and compared the effects to continuous wave exposure at the same frequency and average power. Despite peak power levels 200,000 times higher than average, both exposure types produced identical effects on cell growth that correlated only with heating. The study found no evidence that extremely high peak power creates unique biological effects beyond thermal heating.
Study Details
The study compared bioeffects of continuous wave (CW) microwaves and short, extremely high power pulses (EHPP) at the same carrier frequency (9.3 GHz) and average power (1.25 W).
The peak transmitted power for EHPP was 250 kW (0.5-micro s pulse width, 10 p.p.s.), producing the E...
A biological endpoint was the density of yeast cells, achieved after a 6 h growth period in a solid ...
However, the data revealed no statistically significant difference between CW and EHPP samples across the entire studied range of SAR levels (over six orders of magnitude). A trend (P<0.1) for such a difference was observed in slices that were exposed at a time average SAR of 100 W/kg and higher, which corresponded to peak SAR above 20 MW/kg for the EHPP condition. These numbers could be indicative of a threshold for a specific (not merely thermal) exposure effect if the trend is confirmed by future studies.
Show BibTeX
@article{ag_2002_comparison_of_dose_dependences_3290,
author = {Pakhomov AG and Gaj ek P and Allen L and Stuck BE and Murphy MR},
title = {Comparison of dose dependences for bioeffects of continuous-wave and high-peak power microwave emissions using gel-suspended cell cultures.},
year = {2002},
url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11835262/},
}