Penn Engineering
The School of Engineering and Applied Science, established in 1852, is composed of six academic departments and numerous interdisciplinary centers, institutes, and laboratories. At Penn Engineering, we are preparing the next generation of innovative engineers, entrepreneurs and leaders. Our unique culture of cooperation and teamwork, emphasis on research, and dedicated faculty advisors who teach as well as mentor, provide the ideal environment for the intellectual growth and development of well-rounded global citizens.
- Department of Bioengineering
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- Department of Materials Science & Engineering
- Department of Mechanical Engineering & Applied Mechanics
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- Engineering Documents
- General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception Laboratory
- Institute for Medicine and Engineering
- Kod*lab
- Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter
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Publication Mono-Modal Waveguides Filled with a Pair of Parallel Epsilon-Negative (ENG) and Mu-Negative (MNG) Metamaterial Layers(2003-06-08) Alù, Andrea; Engheta, NaderHere we analyze guided wave propagation in a parallel-plate waveguide filled with a pair of parallel lossless slabs; one possessing negative real permittivity but positive real permeability, and the other with negative real permeability and positive real permittivity, in the range of frequency of interest. It is shown that such a waveguide can support only a single propagating mode, essentially independent of the total thickness of this structure. Furthermore, this waveguide can still possess a propagating mode even when its thickness is very small. Field distribution and dispersion relations in such a mono-modal waveguide are obtained and discussed with physical insights and intuitive description for the mathematical findings.Publication Radiation Characteristics of Microstrip Dipole Antennas over a High-Impedance Metamaterial Surface made of Hilbert Inclusions(2003-06-08) McVay, John; Hoorfar, Ahmad; Engheta, NaderWe analyze numerically the radiation characteristics of center-fed microstrip short dipoles and half-wave dipoles near a high-impedance surface made of Hilbert shape flat inclusions. We study the input impedance, pattern and gain of such radiating structures. We show that the radiation resistance of a microstrip dipole increases noticeably at certain frequencies near the resonant frequency of the Hilbert surface. Moreover, antenna gain enhancement at certain frequencies is observed for all dipole sizes we have analyzed.Publication Anomolous Properties of Scattering from Cavities Partially Loaded With Double-Negative or Single-Negative Materials(2005-01-01) Bilotti, Filiberto; Alù, Andrea; Engheta, Nader; Vegni, LucioIn this paper, the theoretical justification and the numerical verification of the anomalous scattering from cavities partially filled with metamaterials are presented. A hybrid numerical formulation based on the Finite Element Method (FEM) and on the Boundary Integral (BI) for the analysis of cavity backed structures with complex loading metamaterials is first presented. The proposed approach allows the analysis of cavities filled with materials described by tensorial linear constitutive relations, which may well describe artificial metamaterials synthesized with proper inclusions in a host dielectric. It is found that cavities loaded with pairs of metamaterial layers with "resonant" features possess unusual scattering properties, and with judicious selection of constitutive parameters for these materials the transparency effect or significant enhancement in the backscattering from such cavities are obtained. This may be considered as a first step towards the analysis of the scattering and radiating features of cavity-backed patch antennas and reflect-arrays in presence of multilayered metamaterial loads.Publication Peano High Impedance Surfaces(2005-12-01) McVay, John; Hoorfar, Ahmad; Engheta, NaderFollowing our previous work on metamaterial high-impedance surfaces made of Hilbert curve inclusions, here we theoretically explore the performance of the high-impedance surfaces made of another form of space-filling curve known as the Peano curve. This metamaterial surface, formed by a 2-D periodic arrangement of Peano curve inclusions, is located above a conducting ground plane and is shown to exhibit a high surface impedance surface at certain specific frequencies. Our numerical study reveals the effect of the iteration order of the Peano curve, the surface height above the conducting ground plane and the separation distance between adjacent inclusions.Publication Phase and Amplitude of Fractional-Order Intermediate Wave(1999-06-05) Engheta, NaderThe behavior of the amplitude and phase of the "intermediate wave", which we previously introduced as certain fractional solutions to the standard scalar Helmholtz equation, is addressed and presented. These waves effectively behave as intermediate cases between the canonical cases of the plane-wave and cylindrical wave propagation. We show that the amplitude and phase of such intermediate wave undergo interesting "evolutions" as the fractionalization parameter ν attains fractional values between zero and unity. Possible extension into the novel concept of intermediate guided-wave geometries is just speculated.Publication Cloaking a Sensor(2009-06-08) Alù, Andrea; Engheta, NaderWe propose the general concept of cloaking a sensor without affecting its capability to receive, measure, and observe an incoming signal. This may be obtained by using a plasmonic sensor, based on cloaking, made of materials available in nature at infrared and optical frequencies, or realizable as a metamaterial at lower frequencies. The result is a sensing system that may receive and transmit information, while its presence is not perceived by the surrounding, which may be of fundamental importance in a wide range of biological, optics, physics, and engineering applications.Publication Transformation Electronics: Tailoring the Effective Mass of Electrons(2012-10-08) Silveirinha, Mário G; Engheta, NaderThe speed of integrated circuits is ultimately limited by the mobility of electrons or holes, which depend on the effective mass in a semiconductor. Here, building on an analogy with electromagnetic metamaterials and transformation optics, we describe a transport regime in a semiconductor superlattice characterized by extreme anisotropy of the effective mass and a low intrinsic resistance to movement—with zero effective mass—along some preferred direction of electron motion. We theoretically demonstrate that such a regime may permit an ultrafast, extremely strong electron response, and significantly high conductivity, which, notably, may be weakly dependent on the temperature at low temperatures. These ideas may pave the way for faster electronic devices and detectors and functional materials with a strong electrical response in the infrared regime.Publication Polarization- and Specular-Reflection-Based, Non-contact Latent Fingerprint Imaging and Lifting(2006-09-01) Lin, Shih-Schön; Yemelyanov, Konstantin M; Pugh, Edward N; Engheta, NaderIn forensic science the finger marks left unintentionally by people at a crime scene are referred to as "latent fingerprints". Most existing techniques to detect and lift latent fingerprints require application of certain material directly onto the exhibit. The chemical and physical processing applied onto the fingerprint potentially degrades or prevents further forensic testing on the same evidence sample. Many existing methods also come with deleterious side effects. We introduce a method to detect and extract latent fingerprint images without applying any powder or chemicals on the object. Our method is based on the optical phenomena of polarization and specular reflection together with the physiology of fingerprint formation. The recovered image quality is comparable to existing methods. In some cases like the sticky side of a tape our method shows unique advantages.Publication Effects of size and frequency dispersion in plasmonic cloaking(2008-10-01) Alù, Andrea; Engheta, NaderThe plasmonic venue to realize invisibility and cloaking [A. Alù and N. Engheta, Phys. Rev. E 72, 016623 (2005)] is analyzed here in terms of its limitations and its frequency dispersion relative to the cloak size. Intrinsic limits due to causality and comparison with transformation-based cloaking techniques are discussed and analyzed. An interestingly simple low-dispersion cloak is also suggested for background materials with larger refractive index. These results may shed light on this scattering cancellation phenomenon, suggesting potential applications in scattering reduction and noninvasive probing.Publication Separation and contrast enhancement of overlapping cast shadow components using polarization(2006-08-01) Lin, Shih-Schön; Yemelyanov, Konstantin M; Pugh, Edward N; Engheta, NaderShadow is an inseparable aspect of all natural scenes. When there are multiple light sources or multiple reflections several different shadows may overlap at the same location and create complicated patterns. Shadows are a potentially good source of information about a scene if the shadow regions can be properly identified and segmented. However, shadow region identification and segmentation is a difficult task and improperly identified shadows often interfere with machine vision tasks like object recognition and tracking. We propose here a new shadow separation and contrast enhancement method based on the polarization of light. Polarization information of the scene captured by our polarization-sensitive camera is shown to separate shadows from different light sources effectively. Such shadow separation is almost impossible to realize with conventional, polarization-insensitive imaging.