Optics and Antenna Theory Converge at Huygens’ Principle of Diffraction
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 desire 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 of propagation and design of useful devices. 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.
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- Maarintie 8
- Espoo, Sodra Finlands Lan
- Finland 02150
- Building: TUAS Building
- Room Number: 1007a Learning Hub Atrium
- Click here for Map
- Starts 01 August 2025 09:00 PM UTC
- Ends 25 August 2025 09:00 PM UTC
- No Admission Charge
Speakers
Daniel Headland of School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
Biography:
Dr. Daniel Headland earned his Ph.D. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from The University of Adelaide, Australia, in 2017. His doctoral research focused on beamforming of terahertz radiation, with a particular emphasis on the use of efficient silicon microstructures to construct nonuniform metasurfaces. He was awarded the University Doctoral Research Medal and received a Dean’s Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence.
From 2018 to 2021, Dr. Headland held a position at Osaka University under the Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) program of the Japan Science and Technology Agency, where he worked on substrateless, all-intrinsic-silicon micro-scale integration platforms. He later received a three-year CONEX-Plus Research Fellowship under the Marie Curie Actions framework at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain.
Dr. Headland is a recipient of the prestigious Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellowship. As of late 2024, he is undertaking this research fellowship at his alma mater, The University of Adelaide. He is also serving as a 2025 IEEE AP-S Young Professional, and this presentation is part of the AP-S Young Professionals Ambassador Program.
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