Thermal imaging to measure local temperature rises caused by hand-held mobile phones

This paper investigates local heating effects of the ear-skull region that hand-held mobile phones can cause in humans. The goal is to visualize and quantify thermal effects while commercial GSM-phones are in use in the normal contact position by employing modern thermal imaging cameras. The strength of local temperature rises can be used as an indicator of the total exposure related to radiofrequency (RF) radiation from the mobile phone. It is shown that some commercially available hand-held mobile phones cause much greater thermal effects than others under identical experimental conditions. The measurement results are expected to help consumers in choosing those phones which have the least thermal influences and biological effects and might help change the user´s behavior in order to minimize the exposure to RF electromagnetic radiation.