Monday, January 5, 2004

UNM Scientist Honored for Microwave Technology Work

By Olivier Uyttebrouck
Journal Staff Writer
    Edl Schamiloglu has toiled quietly since 1988 in his basement lab at 
the University of New Mexico, working the bugs out of high-powered 
microwave technology.
    But in 2003, the world suddenly discovered him. Articles quoting 
Schamiloglu have cropped up in The New York Times, The Washington Post 
and other national publications.
    The president of AT&T Labs called recently and invited Schamiloglu 
to discuss the potential threat that high-powered microwave devices pose 
to communication systems. That meeting will likely take place this month.
    "Events have caught up to us now so we can have our 15 minutes of 
fame," he said recently at his lab in the Electrical and Computer 
Engineering building.
    Why the sudden interest?
    High-powered microwave devices of the type Schamiloglu and his team 
study produce currents large enough to damage computer microprocessors.
    Schamiloglu said Department of Defense researchers are using his 
work to develop weapons that can knock out computer and communications 
systems.
    The Pentagon has long been interested in potential military uses of 
high-powered microwaves, also called directed energy. Schamiloglu 
estimates that he has received $12 million since 1988 for his research, 
most of it from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
    UNM is a logical site for such study, he said, because the Air Force 
Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base is the Pentagon's center 
for research on directed-energy weapons. The state's two national labs 
also perform high-powered microwave research, he said.
    Stories leaked to the media last year suggested that the Pentagon 
had used a non-lethal microwave device to knock out communications 
systems in Iraq. Schamiloglu said he believes the U.S. military has the 
capability to deploy such a weapon, though he doesn't know if one was 
used in Iraq.
    "It's entirely possible," he said. "I have no idea, of course. It's 
all speculation. But the technology is at a point where it definitely 
could be feasible."
    Heightened concern about terrorism is another reason for 
Schamiloglu's new visibility.
    Directed-energy weapons pose a threat that terrorists could use such 
a device, powered by a small explosive, to knock out vital computing and 
communications systems.
    UNM researchers are quick to note that their work has potential 
applications beyond weaponry.
    Christos Christodoulou, UNM chairman of electrical and computer 
engineering, is working on an improved microwave antenna that could 
greatly expand the amount of data transmitted across the microwave 
spectrum, he said.
    But for now, weaponized uses of directed-energy are getting most of 
the attention.
    Narrowband systems, like those studied at UNM's lab, focus huge 
amounts of energy into a single microwave frequency. The UNM team is 
working on improved materials and designs that will allow researchers to 
build smaller high-powered microwave devices.
    Narrowband microwave devices are probably too expensive and 
sophisticated for terrorist use.
    But not so ultrawideband devices that could be powered by chemical 
explosives, Schamiloglu said.
    Someone with a knowledge of power generation devices could make a 
crude ultrawideband weapon that emitted enough energy to disrupt an air 
traffic control center or communications network, he said.