Health fears over mobile telephones could soon become a thing of the past thanks to an invention by a professor at the University of Warwick.

Professor Roger Green's invention will cut the energy passing through a user's head by 97 per cent. It will also double battery life, or halve the size of the battery needed.

He noticed that antennae for mobiles tend to be based on well-established simple structures -usually "quarter wave dipoles".

Because of their need to be compact, there is no room for more sophistication using conventional techniques.

However their very simplicity, and the fact they broadcast radiation in every direction including the users head, has led some to be concerned about possible health hazards.

Even if the radiation does not cause a health hazard from a technical point of view, the power being transmitted into a user's head is wasted, even if a “hands-free” kit is used.

Prof Green, from the Department of Engineering, has designed a new antenna based on the combination of three elements, "a diffraction antenna" an "dielectric antenna", and a "contoured electric field structure" so that radiation that would move to the user's head is redirected away, by a factor of up to 30 times, in comparison to radiation levels from most current mobile phones.

The effect of all these design elements is to produce a compact antenna which reduces radiation passing through a user’s head by up to 30 times.

It can also double the amount of radiation broadcast away from the head of the user in comparison to that from a standard antenna.

This increased strength signal means that for mobile phones, battery life is extended, or batteries can be smaller for the same effective range of transmission.

The reduced battery size coupled with the reduced antenna size that results from this technology can produce even smaller mobile phones.

The increased efficiency that generates that doubling of signal power could be used instead to halve the radiation output of the phone overall generating the same signal strength as current phones but doubling the reduction of radiation broadcast through the users head.

This would mean 60 times less radiation being broadcast through a users head reducing even more any possible health hazards.

Prof Green is now seeking interest from mobile telephone companies to develop commercial models of this technology.