Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

The explosive growth of wireless and Internet technologies have facilitated the transmission of information data, and created an increasing demand for new family of sensors and antennas, to detect and monitor various phenomena, and communicate the results. Simultaneously, the progress in a number of scientific and technological areas shows promise for development and implementations of new design concepts. One important area deals with the simulated materials, where conventional materials, like conductors and dielectrics, are used to develop novel materials with new properties and superior performances. Examples are the photonic and electromagnetic crystals with band gap structures, metamaterials with negative constitutive parameters and resonant surfaces with artificial magnetic and impedance properties. Their utilization is causing revolutionary impact in hardware design. However, the realization of their full potential, especially in control of their properties, depends heavily on the fabrication and implementation concepts using MEM and nano-technologies. This project proposal is aimed at addressing such issues. We propose to develop active and/or smart surfaces, where their properties can be changed during operation, from being reflective to becoming absorptive or transparent, when illuminated by a spectrum of electromagnetic wave. There are unlimited applications for such adaptive surfaces, and in this project we will emphasize the microwave and millimeter wave bands. In the near-field zone they will be designed to behave as an electric, a magnetic or an impedance surface, and controlled using electrostatic actuated membranes. These active surfaces will be designed as matrix like structures to facilitate the control of their properties at small cell or pixel level. Applications for developing novel sensors, antennas, signal processing surfaces, and elimination of blockage effects will be considered, designed and studied.