Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. has developed technology that will significantly speed up inspections. The technology can be applied to airport-security inspections or electronic-device inspections. It takes advantage of THz waves, which can penetrate nonmetallic materials such as paper, plastic and textiles for nondestructive inspections. Fujitsu said that it offers an accurate picture of a subject, revealing hidden materials through nondestructive inspections.

Fujitsu researched terahertz-band imaging using a graduated mirror array and found that inspection times were 25 times faster, reducing the time frame from the previous 34 minutes to 1 minute and 21 seconds, for targets measuring 30 millimeters horizontally and vertically.

Fujitsu Laboratories plans to continue the development of the scanning method and commercialize it in 2014.