Preliminary Results of Thermal Effects due to Mobile Phones

Public concerns associated with the electromagnetic field (EMF) exposures from mobile phones on human body are increased. Although studies on the effects of the EMF exposures on human have been carried out for a long time, it is not proved yet whether the EMF effect is harmful or not. Based on the scientific results by experts, EMF exposure limits have been regulated as a precautionary approach on the assumption that the EMF effect may be harmful. It is well known that absorbed EMF can be transformed into heat within biological tissues and that thermal effects are related with the specific absorption rate (SAR) distribution. However, the relative magnitude and distribution of the energies are not well defined. Although there is comprehensive information of the thermal effects, most of them come from animal and in vitro studies. Considerable efforts have been made to analyze the EMF absorption model while the actual temperature in the human body has been rarely measured. Temperature changes on the face of a healthy male volunteer were studied. A digital mobile phone of 1.8GHz was used. A digital infrared imaging system (IRIS-5000, Medicore, Seoul, Korea) was applied to take infrared pictures of the face every minute while the volunteer talked over the mobile phone for 20 minutes. The specification of the imaging system was as follows: Temperature resolution = 0.1$^{\circ}C$; Range of temperature measurement = 17～40$^{\circ}C$; Pixel size = 0.9mm ${\times}$ 0.9mm; Frame time = 2.6s; Active temperature of detector = 77$^{\circ}$K. The result showed that temperature of the ear region was increased during the phone call and the region of the temperature increase on the face was expanded as the phone call time increased. Further study is necessary to investigate the temperature rise analytically and quantitatively.