This study examines the nonuniform exposure to the cornea from incident millimeter waves at 94-100 GHz. Two previous studies measured temperature increases in the rhesus cornea exposed to brief (1-6 s) pulses of high-fluence millimeter waves (94 GHz), one of which also estimated thresholds for corneal damage (reported as ED50, the dose resulting in a visible lesion 50% of the time). Both studies noted large variations in the temperature increase across the surface of the cornea due to wave interference effects. This study examines this variability using high-resolution simulations of mm-wave absorption and temperature increase in the human cornea from exposures to plane wave energy at 100 GHz. Calculations are based on an earlier study. The simulations show that the peak temperature increases in the cornea from short exposures (up to 10 s) to high-intensity mm-wave pulses are 1.7-2.8 times the median increase depending on the polarization of the incident energy. A simple one-dimensional "baseline" model provides a good estimate of the median temperature increase in the cornea. Two different estimates are presented for the thresholds for producing thermal lesions, expressed in terms of the minimum fluence of incident 100 GHz pulses. The first estimate is based on thresholds for thermal damage from pulsed infrared energy, and the second is based on a thermal damage model. The mm-wave pulses presently considered far exceed current IEEE or ICNIRP exposure limits but may be produced by some nonlethal weapons systems. Interference effects due to wave reflections from structures in and near the eye result in highly localized variations in energy absorbed in the cornea and surrounding facial tissues and are important to consider in a hazard analysis for exposures to intense pulsed millimeter waves.

中文翻译：

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毫米波对角膜的不均匀照射。

这项研究检查了 94-100 GHz 入射毫米波对角膜的不均匀暴露。之前的两项研究测量了暴露于高通量毫米波 (94 GHz) 短暂 (1-6 秒) 脉冲的恒河猴角膜的温度升高，其中一项还估计了角膜损伤的阈值（报告为 ED50，剂量导致50% 的时间可见病变）。两项研究都指出，由于波干涉效应，角膜表面的温度升高变化很大。本研究使用高分辨率模拟人体角膜因暴露于 100 GHz 的平面波能量而导致的毫米波吸收和温度升高来检查这种可变性。计算基于早期的研究。模拟表明，从短时间曝光（长达 10 秒）到高强度毫米波脉冲，角膜的峰值温度升高是中值升高的 1.7-2.8 倍，具体取决于入射能量的极化。一个简单的一维“基线”模型提供了对角膜中温升高的良好估计。对产生热损伤的阈值提出了两种不同的估计，以入射 100 GHz 脉冲的最小通量表示。第一个估计基于脉冲红外能量的热损伤阈值，第二个估计基于热损伤模型。目前考虑的毫米波脉冲远远超过当前的 IEEE 或 ICNIRP 暴露限制，但可能由一些非致命武器系统产生。