Ashwin Iyer, PhD

Area of Study / Keywords

Electromagnetics and Microwaves Energy Systems Photonics and Plasmas Electromagnetics RF Microwave Antennas Metamaterials Metasurfaces Periodic Structures Biomedical Engineering

About

Ashwin K. Iyer received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 2009. He joined the faculty of the University of Alberta Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the fall of same year and now holds the title of Professor and Director of the Microwave, Millimetre-wave, and MetaDevices (M3) Laboratory. He leads a team of talented graduate students in several areas of RF/microwave/millimetre-wave and antenna engineering. A large focus of his research is the analysis, characterization, and experimental validation of metamaterial phenomena and their application.

Dr. Iyer was part of the pioneering effort at the University of Toronto in the early 2000s in developing metamaterials that exhibit a negative refractive index and the demonstration of free-space subdiffraction imaging - contributions that have shaped the evolution of metamaterials research and mobilized later work in this area. He has co-authored several highly cited papers in the fields of RF/microwave engineering, antennas, physics, and optics, as well as four invited book chapters and several invited talks, workshops, and seminars on the subject of his research. Dr. Iyer has received a number awards and recognitions, including the 2008 R.W.P. King Award, presented by the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) to an author less than 36 years of age for the best paper published in the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation during the previous year. He has received the IEEE AP-S Donald G. Dudley Jr. Undergraduate Teaching Award (2015), the University of Alberta Provost's Award for Early Achievement of Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2014), and the University of Alberta Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2018). He was as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation between 2012 and 2018 and now serves as one of its eleven international Track Editors. He was also the Lead Guest Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation Special Issue on Recent Advances in Metamaterials and Metasurfaces. He serves as Chair of the IEEE Northern Canada Section (NCS) Joint AP-S/MTT-S Chapter, and is a member of the IEEE AP-S Education Committee. Dr. Iyer is a registered member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA).

Research

Our research group seeks to develop new directions in classical areas of electromagnetics and RF/microwave engineering, but is centered around the study of 'metamaterial' technologies. Metamaterials are artificial materials designed to possess exotic electromagnetic properties not available in nature, such as a negative refractive index. Their unusual properties can be leveraged to improve the performance of several devices and, sometimes, yield entirely new phenomena. Metamaterials represent an explosive emerging research area that has attracted significant attention in recent years for groundbreaking innovations. Our research group is investigating the ways in which we can control electromagnetic fields using such metamaterials, as well as their applications to practical devices and components for biomedicine, defense, and telecommunications. Some examples of our group's most recent contributions are listed below.

RF/microwave circuits and transmission-line techniques

• Embedded metamaterial-based EBGs for multi-band devices
• Multiconductor transmission-line modeling of metamaterials and EBGs

Fundamental electromagnetic theory

• Mechanisms of subdiffraction imaging
• Complex modes, the theory of FSSs, and extraordinary transmission
• Effective-medium/homogenization theories and techniques

Novel concepts in antenna theory and design

• Antenna miniaturization
• Beamshaping structures
• New antenna topologies for IoT, RFID, fixed broadband wireless, GPS, GPR, and 5G

Metamaterial/metasurface devices and their applications

• Miniaturized waveguide devices
• Metamaterial solutions for high-field MRI
• Conformal metasurfaces for antenna beamshaping
• Metamaterial-enhanced sensing and refractometry
• Metamaterial-enabled subdiffraction imaging/lensing
• THz-IR-optical plasmonic metasurfaces

Teaching

Teaching Awards

• University of Alberta Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2018)
• IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Donald G. Dudley Jr. Undergraduate Teaching Award (2015)
• University of Alberta Provost's Award for Early Achievement of Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2014)
• University of Toronto Department of ECE Teaching Excellence Recognition (2004, 2005, 2006)

ECE 478 - Microwave Circuits

Introduction to RF/microwave circuits and their applications. Maxwell's Equations and basic wave-propagation concepts. Transmission-line theory and impedance-matching techniques. Practical planar transmission lines. Lumped and distributed microwave-circuit elements. Microwave network analysis using impedance/admittance parameters, scattering parameters, and transmission-matrix methods. Analysis, design, fabrication, and test of practical RF/microwave devices including power dividers/combiners, couplers, amplifiers, and filters. Prerequisites: ECE 370 or E E 315 or PHYS 381. Credit may be obtained in only one of ECE 478 or E E 478.

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