University of California,
Santa Barbara
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
THz Science, Technology, and Systems
ECE 594DI Fall 2008
Instructor: Prof. Elliott Brown
Schedule:Tuesday, Thusday, 4:00 - 5:50 PM, 1437 Phelps
Announcements:
There will be no Lecture on Tuesday Nov. 12 in honor of the Veteran's Day Holiday.
10/28/08: The first Quiz will be held Thursday Oct. 30; one hour, closed book, closed notes, coverage of HW#1 thru HW#3
11/25/08: The second Quiz will be held Thursday Dec. 4; one hour, closed book, closed notes, coverage of HW#4 thru HW#6
Course Information: Spanning from 300 to 3000 GHz (or higher), the THz frequency region is one of the last frontiers of the electromagnetic spectrum and rapidly growing in popularity worldwide. As in the RF region below it, electronic devices are evolving that allow “field-based” rectification, amplification, mixing, and oscillation – the basic functionality in all RF systems, and guided-wave and transmission-line structures exist that can route and transform electromagnetic waves, albeit with much greater loss than in the RF region. As in the infrared region above THz, photonic devices are evolving that allow detection, mixing, and oscillation (i.e., lasing), and “quasi-optical” techniques exist that can route and transform electromagnetic waves in free space where components are simpler and losses are generally lower. This course aims to cover these technological issues as well as their implementation and integration into systems, both passive and active. An emphasis will be placed on active sensor systems (i.e., radars and active imagers) since they have shown the greatest promise recently, and are being actively pursued by a number of research groups for security (e.g., concealed object imaging) and medical (e.g., carcinoma and burn imaging) applications. In addition, the fundamental physics and chemistry of the THz region will be summarized, particularly the transition from classical to quantum transport in semiconductors and other solid-state materials, the behavior of optical phonons and related collective excitations in polar solids and large biomolecules such as nucleic acids and proteins, and the realization and utilization of quantum states and resonances. An overall emphasis will be placed on room-temperature phenomenology.
Reading Assignments
Final Course Project
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Last Updated:
December 3, 2008