X-Rays Detected from Scotch Tape

One of the essentials of holiday wrapping, Scotch Tape may have another use. 

Last week, scientists reported that the popular adhesive produced X-Rays when peeled off the roll  in a vaccum.   The researchers even made an X-ray image of one of their fingers.  The work confirmed reports made 50 years ago by Russian scientists of X-rays from peeling sticky tape off glass.

“We were very surprised,” said Juan Escobar. “The power you could get from just peeling tape was enormous.”

Escobar, a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, reported the work with UCLA colleagues in  the journal Nature.

With some refinement, it’s possible the process might be harnessed for making inexpensive x-ray devices for paramedics or for places where electricity is expensive or hard to get. The researchers and UCLA have applied for a patent covering such devices.

In the new work, a machine peeled ordinary Scotch tape off a roll in a vacuum chamber at about 1.2 inches per second. Rapid pulses of X-rays, each about a billionth of a second long, emerged from very close to where the tape was coming off the roll.

That’s where electrons jumped from the roll to the sticky underside of the tape that was being pulled away, a journey of about two-thousandths of an inch, Escobar said. When those electrons struck the sticky side they slowed down, and that slowing made them emit X-rays.

But what does this mean to you when it comes to wrapping up those gifts this holiday season?  Escobar says that using Scotch Tape at home is still safe, at least X-ray wise.

“If you’re going to peel tape in a vacuum, you should be extra careful,” he said. But “I will continue to use Scotch tape during my daily life, and I think it’s safe to do it in your office. No guarantees.”