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Radio waves are produced artificially by time-varying electric currents, consisting of electrons flowing back and forth in a specially shaped metal conductor called an antenna. An electronic device called a radio transmitter applies oscillating electric current to the antenna, and the antenna radiates the power as radio waves.
Radio propagation is the behavior of radio waves as they travel, or are propagated, from one point to another in vacuum, or into various parts of the atmosphere. [1]: 26‑1 As a form of electromagnetic radiation, like light waves, radio waves are affected by the phenomena of reflection, refraction, diffraction, absorption, polarization, and scattering. [2]
The electromagnetic waves in each of these bands have different characteristics, such as how they are produced, how they interact with matter, and their practical applications. Radio waves, at the low-frequency end of the spectrum, have the lowest photon energy and the longest wavelengths—thousands of kilometers, or more.
Solar radio emission refers to radio waves that are naturally produced by the Sun, primarily from the lower and upper layers of the atmosphere called the chromosphere and corona, respectively. The Sun produces radio emissions through four known mechanisms, each of which operates primarily by converting the energy of moving electrons into ...
Hertz also developed ways to detect these waves, and produced and characterized what were later termed radio waves and microwaves. [45]: 286, 7 Wilhelm Röntgen discovered and named X-rays. After experimenting with high voltages applied to an evacuated tube on 8 November 1895, he noticed a fluorescence on a nearby plate of coated glass.
This experiment produced and received what are now called radio waves in the very high frequency range. Hertz's first radio transmitter: a capacitance loaded dipole resonator consisting of a pair of one meter copper wires with a 7.5 mm spark gap between them, ending in 30 cm zinc spheres. [14]
In radio communication, used in radio and television broadcasting, cell phones, two-way radios, wireless networking, and satellite communication, among numerous other uses, radio waves are used to carry information across space from a transmitter to a receiver, by modulating the radio signal (impressing an information signal on the radio wave ...
Medical applications of radio frequency (RF) energy, in the form of electromagnetic waves (radio waves) or electrical currents, have existed for over 125 years, [9] and now include diathermy, hyperthermy treatment of cancer, electrosurgery scalpels used to cut and cauterize in operations, and radiofrequency ablation. [10]