"Images taken using terahertz rays have good contrast between similar density objects, " explained co-author Willie Padilla.
Dr Jackson and her colleagues were called in to apply terahertz imaging to find out what lay beneath.
Instead, it passively reads the terahertz radiation emitted by humans, and detects anomalies when concealed items block that radiation.
More immediately, the terahertz technology will open up a range of new applications.
Up until now their uses have been limited because of the lack of inexpensive methods to generate and detect terahertz rays.
Six researchers from the Tokyo Institute of Technology are now aiming the terahertz-level frequencies at a less organic target: fast wireless.
ENGADGET: T-rays produce 3Gbps short-range wireless, make WiFi pout in the corner
Last month, the California Institute of Technology developed a terahertz microchip, raising the possibility the technology could one day be packed into hand-held devices.
Terahertz waves are known for their ability to penetrate materials without damaging them, and have in recent years been added to the suite of tools used to examine items of cultural heritage.
Beck hopes to eventually use entire arrays of Josephson junctions to better measure quantum noise spectra in the terahertz region, noting that any anomaly there that cannot be explained by conventional physics could be a hint of dark energy.
"Theoretically if you construct the elements we've made at terahertz frequencies, make them even smaller and then scale them up to optical frequencies, you could have perfect lensing at those frequencies, " said co-author Dr Willie Padilla of the University of California, San Diego.
Terahertz light - which lies between infrared light like that used by remote controls and the microwaves in the appliance of the same name - has become popular in scanning technology at airports and museums' back rooms because it can extract information without risk of damage.
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