Transporters

are matter-energy conversion devices that take an object or being and trans-form it into a pattern of phased energy that can be transmitted as a complex trans-barrier signal through the first-level subspace (hyperspace) domain to a set of desired coordinates and then retransformed into its original form. They employ Heisenberg compensators, pattern buffers, phase transition coils, biofilters, matter streams, confinement beams, matterenergy converters, and phased matter. An entity remains conscious during transport and can be held in stasis. While in transport, you seem whole to yourself.
    The "annular confinement beam" locks onto, then disassembles, a subject into phased matter via the phase transition coils, causing it to take on an energylike state somewhat akin to plasma, called phased matter. The matter stream is then fed into the pattern buffer, piped through waveguide conduits to one of the beam emitters on the hull of the starship, and then relayed to a point on the ground where the annular confinement beam reconstructs the subject.
    The annular confinement beam maintains a "lock" on the subject to identify what to beam out and what to leave behind. The beam also transports the intact subject.
The "pattern buffer," a cyclotron-like tank, holds the whirling matrix of phased matter in the annular confinement beam while the subject is beamed out and beamed in. It keeps track of the subject's particles in the beam.
    "Virtual focus molecular imaging scanners" perform a trace at the quantum level. The transporter ID trace keeps a verification record of the trace after transport. This compressed sample also includes the subject's name and logs of the transport cycle.
Ionizers and phase transition coils perform the quantum matrix manipulation to transform an object into phased matter in what is known as the "dematerialization
process."
    This is what produces the familiar gold "sparkles" of the older-style Federation transporters and the red-and-blue effects of later Federation systems, as different dematerialization and phase transition processes were developed.
    The Heisenberg Principle states that you cannot know both the location of a subatomic particle and its direction of motion. This has changed by the twenty-fourth century. The Heisenberg compensators help keep track of the particles in the beam by compensating for what is not known.
    The biofilters identifies elements of the pattern and erases unwanted particles. It can be used to filter out unwanted viruses or bacteria and to manipulate DNA strings.
    Pattern degradation occurs because annular confinement beams aren't perfect, even when amplified by Heisenberg compensators. The matter stream shifts out of alignment. A subject can be suspended in transport for up to 420 seconds before degradation becomes too severe to reform the subject. Locking the transport controller in a diagnostic loop keeps pattern degradation to a minimum, but phased-matter ,,bugs" reside in the plasma environment.
    Emitter array pads reside at various sites on the surface of the Voyager hull. "Long range virtual focus molecular imaging scanners" handle remote disassembly of the subject and facilitate reassembly.

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Info is from some books