Daniel

Optics and antenna theory appear to be very different on the surface, coming as they do from a set of different traditions and formalisms, and serving the needs of vastly different applications. That said, these two disciplines are intrinsically linked, as they are both concerned with physical structures capable of projecting electromagnetic beams with certain desired shapes and properties into free-space. The subject of this talk is therefore one very useful and instructive entry point to understand the correspondence between these two worlds: Huygens’ principle of diffraction. Although most of us have had some exposure to this concept, even as early as in high-school physics, it is very easy to overlook its full potential and generality as a tool for the analysis and design of useful devices, and especially for array antennas. To address this, this talk will cover the background principles of Huygens’ principle in abstract, general terms, before specializing into specific uses in both an antennas- and optics-context. A MATLAB tutorial component will also be included in order to demonstrate how Huygens’ principle can straightforwardly be employed to model the propagation of arbitrary aperture distributions.

Biography:

Daniel Headland earned his doctorate in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 2017 at The University of Adelaide in Australia. The overarching topic of his doctoral thesis was beamforming of terahertz radiation, with a particular focus on the use of efficient silicon microstructures to construct nonuniform metasurfaces. The quality of Dr Headland’s thesis, which was titled “Efficient Terahertz-Range Beam Control Using Flat Optics,” was recognized by his alma mater with distinguished awards such as the University Doctoral Research Medal and a Dean’s Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence. He then shared the knowledge that he gained with his broader research community by publishing a comprehensive invited tutorial article on terahertz beamforming. Thereafter, Dr Headland obtained a competitive Australian Endeavour Research Fellowship to undertake abroad, at The University of Wuppertal in Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Ullrich Pfeiffer. His research activities primarily concerned the development of bespoke quasi-optics to enhance and extend the achievable functionality of advanced CMOS-based terahertz integrated system-on-a-chip devices. From 2018 to 2021, Dr Headland was a Specially Appointed Researcher at Osaka University under the Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) program of the Japan Science and Technology, under the guidance of Prof. Tadao Nagatsuma. It was there that he developed his present focus of substrateless all-intrinsic-silicon micro-scale integration platforms that leverage the principles of guided-wave photonics for efficient, compact, handheld terahertz integrated circuits and systems. This addresses a major lack of a dedicated platform that is specifically suited to the unique needs of terahertz waves, and so to encourage widespread adoption, Dr Headland has since shared his knowledge with the research community with another comprehensive invited tutorial article. At the conclusion of his time in Japan, Dr Headland’s distinguishment as an early career researcher was recognized with a competitive three-year CONEX-Plus research Fellowship under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions framework to undertake at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, in Spain, under the supervision of Prof. Guillermo Carpintero. The primary objective of this fellowship was the development of advanced terahertz lab-on-a-chip biosensing devices that adapt and leverage integrated quasi-optical techniques that Dr Headland originally pioneered in Osaka. Recently, Dr Headland has been awarded a Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) fellowship, which is a competitive and prestigious Australian Research Council’s program for early career researchers. As of the end of 2024, he is undertaking this research award at his alma mater, The University of Adelaide.

Address:Adelaide Uni, The University of Adelaide , Adelaide, Australia, 5005