Electromagnetics, RF, and Microwaves
Faculty advisors:
The origins of electromagnetics can be traced to the earliest days of human existence. Fear and fascination with many natural phenomena including lightning lingered for thousands of years until sound physical understandings were developed. Ancient Greeks noticed that rubbing fur against amber ('electron' in Greek language) caused attraction between the two. The 20th century archeological findings indicate that the first battery was made in old Iraq in 3rd century BC. Many scientists and free thinking minds over the last 300 years, including Benjamin Franklin, Michael Faraday, Nikola Tesla, James Clerk Maxwell, Heinrich Hertz and others have contributed to tremendous advances in electromagnetics, and by application of electromagnetics, to electrical and electronic engineering as a whole. Try to imagine life without electrical signals, power, and modern electronic materials: radio, TV, phones, air travel, refrigeration, etc. would be virtually impossible.
The CU Electromagnetics, RF and Microwave focus area provides the necessary foundation for understanding the phenomena of electricity, magnetism and radio waves, and facilitates the engineering of a wide range of RF and microwave components, devices, sub-systems, and systems. EM theory, design, measurements and fabrication are covered on a level that enables a career in industry, government, or further education on a master's or doctoral level. A background in mathematics and elementary circuits is needed. The low-frequency part of this track is the foundation for circuit theory, while the high-frequency portion merges with the optics track.
Some Technological Problem Areas
- Generation, transmission, propagation, and reception of radio waves
- Wireless, satellite, and cable communications, including radio and television
- Antennas for cell phones, vehicles, space exploration, navigation, and sensing
- RF and microwave transmitters and receivers
- Microwave transmission lines, amplifiers, oscillators, resonators, and filters
- Radar, concealed weapon and buried object detection; stealth design
- Remote sensing of Earth and planetary surfaces, oceans, atmospheres, and cryospheres
- RF tagging, telemetry, therapeutic and industrial heating
- Acoustic sensing and communications; seismic sensing
Some Societal Problem Areas
- Wireless communications and networking
- Medical instrumentation, diagnostics, treatment and therapeutics
- Alternative energy resources - wireless power harvesting
- Environment sensing, monitoring, and forecasting
- Border control, defense, homeland security
