Winter 2025

Seminar Coordinators:


The Design and Use of THz Quasi-Optical Systems for Measurements Covering the Size Range from 10^(-10) to 10^37 Metres - Protein Folding to Cosmology

  • Speaker: Richard Wylde
  • Date: February 26, 2025
  • Location: Refreshments in Olney Hall room 143 at 3:30 p.m.; Presentation in Olsen Hall room 503 at 4 p.m.
  • This is an in-person UMass Lowell Department of Physics and Applied Physics Colloquia supported in-part by the Submillimeter-Wave Technology Laboratory (STL).

Abstract:

The use of Quasi-Optical (QO) systems - optics where diffraction matters - to make important measurements for science and humanity will be discussed, and the advantages of QO over waveguide approaches above 100 GHz outlined, with examples from:

  • Remote sensing of the atmosphere
  • Electron Spin Resonance to measure protein folding
  • Laser Physics
  • mm-wave Astronomy
  • Measurements of the 3K Cosmic Microwave Background

Biosketch:

Read Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, and earned a Ph.D. under Professor Derek Martin in what was then Queen Mary College, University of London.

He has since spent his time between the academic and business worlds, developing an old family precision toolmaking business - whose commercial origins stretch back to 1780 - into an export based (UK Government: Queens Award 2012) scientific instrument business building instrumentation for cosmology, astronomy, atmospheric remote sensing and electron spin resonance. His factory designed and built the antennas for one of the two instruments on the European Space Agency's Planck Mission whose measurements currently provide the most detailed knowledge of the very early Universe.

He is a visiting reader in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, St. Andrews, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2013.

Fall 2024

Early Investigations of Terahertz Technology for Biomedical Applications

  • Cecil Joseph
  • November 8, 2024

Deep Learning for RF and Optical Devices

  • Hualiang Zhang
  • September 20, 2024

Fall 2022 / Spring 2023

Generalized Space-Time Engineered Modulation (GSTEM) Metamaterials

  • Christophe Caloz, Ph.D.
  • Postponed

Frequency Transformation from Microwave to Terahertz by a Time-varying Medium

  • Dikshitulu K. Kalluri, Professor Emeritus University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • April 20, 2023

THz Technology: The Move from Scientific to Commercial Applications - 6G, Space and More

  • Jeffrey Hesler, Ph.D.
  • December 7, 2022