Electromagnetic radiation from VDT units: study of the effectiveness of an active shielding device

Measurements of extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields and low frequency magnetic fields emitted by a set of video display terminal (VDT) units are reported. The field values measured at the position normally occupied by the user are below the safety limits. This is because the field amplitudes decrease rapidly (following a 1/R3 law) with the distance from the source, as has been verified in this work. Measurements with a commercial shielding device consisting of small plastic balls filled with a water solution of rare earth elements were also performed. The only physical mechanism that could be hypothesized to produce an active suppression of the VDT field is that rare earth atoms, which probably were chosen due to their large magnetic moment, behave as oscillating magnetic dipoles capable of emitting a secondary magnetic field that, along some particular directions, has a phase that is opposite to that of the exciting field. Unfortunately, if one analyzes this mechanism quantitatively, it is easy to show that the secondary magnetic field is absolutely negligible, as was confirmed by experimental measurements performed in this study.