= Microwave
{title2=1 mm - 1 m}
{title2=300 MHz - 300 GHz}
{wiki}
Micro means "small wavelength compared to <radio waves>", not <micron>-sized.
Microwave production and detection is incredibly important in many modern applications:
* <telecommunications>, e.g. being used in
* <Wi-Fi>
* satellite communications
https://youtu.be/EYovBJR6l5U?list=PL-_93BVApb58SXL-BCv4rVHL-8GuC2WGb&t=27 from <CuriousMarc> comments on some piece of Apollo equipment they were restoring/reversing:
\Q[These are the boxes that brought you voice, data and live TV from the moon, and should be early masterpieces of microwave electronics, the blackest of black arts in analog electronics.]
Ah, <Ciro Santilli> really wishes he knew what that meant more precisely. Sounds so cool!
* <4G> and other <cellular network> standards
* <radar>. As an example, <1965 Nobel Prize in Physics laureate> <Julian Schwinger> did some notable work in the area in <World War II>, while most other physicists went to the <Manhattan Project> instead.
This is well highlighted in <QED and the men who made itby Silvan Schweber (1994)>. Designing the cavity wasn't easy. One of the key initial experiments of <quantum electrodynamics>, the <Lamb-Retherford experiment> from 1947, fundamental for modern physics, was a direct consequence of post-radar research by physicists who started to apply wartime developments to their scientific search.
Wikipedia also mentions https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Microwave&oldid=1093188913\#Radar_2[]:
\Q[The first modern silicon and germanium diodes were developed as microwave detectors in the 1930s, and the principles of semiconductor physics learned during their development led to semiconductor electronics after the war.]
* microwave is the natural frequency of several important <Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics> phenomena, and has been used extensively in <quantum computing> applications, including completely different types of <quantum computer type>:
* <trapped ion quantum computer>; <video Trapping Ions for Quantum Computing by Diana Craik (2019)>
* <superconducting quantum computer>; e.g. this Junior Microwave Design Engineer job accouncement from <Alice&Bob>: https://archive.ph/wip/4wGPJ
Likely part of the appeal of microwaves is that they are <non-ionizing>, so you don't destroy stuff. But at the same time, they are much more compatible with atomic scale energies than radio waves, which have way way too little energy.