The field of applied electromagnetics has roots going back to giants of electrical engineering such as Maxwell, Faraday, Hertz, Marconi, and Tesla. In recent years it has expanded beyond antennas and radio wave propagation to include emerging areas such as micro-electromechanical systems, metamaterials, nanomagnetics, biological applications of electromagnetic fields, information technologies, and other novel devices and structures. There is a strong need for students with skills in these areas in the industries of telecommunications, defense, microwave instruments, medical devices, and other areas. These industries are growing rapidly, driven in particular by the continuing expansion of wireless communications and related technologies. This program will prepare students for a broad range of career opportunities in research and technology development in the expanding field of applied electromagnetics.

Frequencies of interest span the electromagnetic spectrum, from statics through radio frequencies, as well as THz, infrared, and optical frequencies. Research projects include a wide range of fields including electrically small antennas, millimeter-wave phased arrays, multi-input/multi-output (MIMO) antenna systems, micro-electromechanical systems, artificial impedance surfaces and scattering control, photonic topological insulators, nonlinear and active electromagnetic structures, plasma and vacuum devices, field and photoemission, biological effects of electromagnetic fields, electromagnetic interference shielding, superconductor electronics, nanomagnetic structures for data storage or quantum information science, optical phased arrays, integrated optics and chip-scale phonic devices, optical microscopy, and many other areas.