A Center for Applied Electromagnetics (AppEl) has been established at the University of Maryland, College Park. This center is the focal point for fundamental research on topics that promise to lead to significant improvement and valuable new concepts in future systems based on electromagnetic phenomena in the spectral range from microwaves to visible light; the founding grant was made by the Office of Naval Research. A well-integrated program is underway involving theoretical analysis, computational analysis and experimentation. The research aims at pushing forward the frontiers of knowledge in a wide swath of advanced research areas including nonlinear dynamics and chaos, directed energy, femtosecond high intensity laser pulses, nanophotonics, high brightness free-electron lasers, terahertz gyrotrons, terahertz components, nanostructured materials, nanoplasmonics, high performance materials, power beaming and advanced techniques for UAVs.

Specific research tasks together with the corresponding task leaders are as follows:

  1. Upset and damage in electronic systems due to high power microwave (HPM) pulses (Task leaders: V. Granatstein, J. Rodgers, N. Goldsman)
  2. A wave chaos approach to understanding and mitigating directed energy (DE) effects (Task leaders: S. Anlage, T. Antonsen, E. Ott)
  3. Conceptual electromagnetic design of power components for high power FEL systems and rail guns (Task leader: I. Mayergoyz)
  4. Free electron laser (FEL) research (Task leaders: P. O'Shea, R. Kishek)
  5. Control of molecular alignment in the atmosphere for enhanced long-range propagation and detection (Task leaders:  H. Milchberg, T. Antonsen, K. Kim)
  6. Generation of intense, short pulses of coherent THz. radiation via laser plasma interaction (Task leaders: H. Milchberg, T. Antonsen, K. Kim)
  7. Gyrotron BWO with pulsed magnetic field for generation of narrowband, tunable THz. radiation (Task leaders: V. Granatstein, G. Nusinovich, J. Rodgers)
  8. Nanostructured materials for THz devices and sensors (Task leader: T. Murphy)
  9. Nanophotonic devces for quantum information processing and sensing (Task leaders: E. Waks, I. Mayergoyz, O. Rabin, B. Shapiro)
10. Nanoscale electrodynamics of superconductors and other materials with radical new forms of microwave spectroscopy (Task leaders: S. Anlage, M. Fuhrer)
11. Directed energy recharge and flexible power for UAVs (Task leaders: M. Dagenais, M. Peckerar)
12. Distributed cooperative control and navigation of unmanned aerial vehicles via wireless communication (Task leader: N. Martins)

These topics are relevant to a number of crucially important applications such as detection of WMD and other concealed weapons, IED countermeasures, speed-of-light weapons technologies for shipboard defense, quantum computing, unmanned aerial vehicle arrays, and unconventional electronics warfare. They, in general, support the interest in deploying all-electric ships and in controlling the electromagnetic spectrum in operational engagements.

The University of Maryland (UMD) has assembled a team of 20 outstanding research scientists drawn from eight academic departments and research institutes. Our research group also has an excellent tradition of producing PhD graduates, many of whom are now working at DOD laboratories. The present proposal includes support for 20 graduate students and 6 post-doctoral researchers who would form a national resource of a new generation of engineers and scientists with training in advanced topics in electromagnetics.

In addition to research performed directly at the University of Maryland (UMD), a parallel ONR award is being made to an outstanding research team at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on the topic of nanotechnology (Principal investigator: Dr. Nathan Moody) ; this LANL study importantly complements the studies in task #8 at UMD. A parallel award is also being made to an expert team of scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory on the topic of High Power Microwave effects (Principal investigator: Dr. T. Andreadis) which will complement the UMD research in tasks #1 and #2.

There are many reasons why the University of Maryland is the appropriate place for engineering and physics research that can form a basis for all-electric ships and speed-of-light weapons that the Navy anticipates deploying. In recent years, US News and World Report has ranked the University of Maryland graduate research programs in Nonlinear Dynamics as number one, in Plasma Science as number two, and in Optics as number five in the nation. Key faculty in these programs are participating in the proposed research.