Department of Space, Earth and Environment,

MPWPS, year 1, study period 1, academic year 2022/2023

Electromagnetic Waves and Components (RRY036)
Course-PM

Examiner: Pär Strand

Course homepage: https://chalmers.instructure.com/courses/15356
Teachers:
Pär Strand (par.strand@chalmers.se), phone 772 1514, room 4433 (EDIT building)
Andrei Osipov (osipov@chalmers.se), room 4411 (EDIT building)
Arto Heikkilä (arto.heikkila@chalmers.se), room 4320 (EDIT building)
Joachim Ciers (joachim.ciers@chalmers.se), room B440 (MC2) Hologram assignment,
Lab 3
Vincent Desmaris (vincent.desmaris@chalmers.se), room A917 (MC2) – Labs 1&2
Zonglong He (zonglong@chalmers.se), and Apaydin Dogukan(apaydin@chalmers.se),
MC2 - Lab 3 MC2 - Lab 3 teachers
XXX.XXXXX (XXXXX@chalmers.se), MC2 – Lab 1-2 teacher

Administrator: Paulina Sjögren (paulina.sjogren@chalmers.se)

General information
The aim of the course is to enhance the student's insight into the physical concepts and
principles used to describe the generation and detection of electromagnetic waves, and
their propagation through different types of media. The manipulation of electromagnetic
waves in modern wireless and photonics components is highlighted. This course provides
a basis for further studies in engineering branches, which rely heavily on the usage of
electromagnetic waves (e.g. microwave engineering, photonics, electronic
communication, and remote sensing).
The teacher lead activities comprise lectures where the central parts of the theory are
discussed and problem-solving sessions where example problems are solved. There will
be compulsory lab exercises and a compulsory home assignment with written and
experimental examination. In addition, optional homework problems will be distributed
during the course. The theory part and laboratory work comprise 6.0 and 1.5 credits,
respectively. New for this year is teacher assisted problem solving sessions
(“räknestugor” in Swedish.)

Course literature
The main material of the course is taken from chapters 1-3, 5-7, 11 and 15 in Orfanidis’
online book. In addition, a few chapters from other sources and lecture notes will be used.
All of the course material can be accessed freely from the web or the course homepage.

Book: Sophocles J. Orfanidis: Electromagnetic Waves and Antennas

(https://www.ece.rutgers.edu/~orfanidi/ewa/)

Handouts
Texts from E-books available in the library (a separate list will be handed out)
Suggestions for further reading

Other helpful recommended texts are

R. P. Feynman, Feynman's lecture notes on Physics, Vol I-III, Addison Wesley Longman
(June 1970). Anyone interested in learning physics in a deep way should seriously
consider investing in their own copy of Feynman.
David J. Griffiths, Introduction to Electrodynamics, 3rd ed, Prentice Hall (1999).
D. H. Staelin, A. W. Morgenthaler, J. A. Kong, Electromagnetic waves, Prentice Hall
(1998).
D. Fleisch, A Student’s Guide to Maxwell’s Equations, Cambridge University Press
(2008).
H. M. Schey, “Div, grad, curl and all that”, W W Norton & Company (2005).
M. Fox, Quantum Optics, Oxford University press (2006).
CC. Gerry & P. Knight, Introductory Quantum Optics, Cambridge University Press
(2004).
There is plenty of useful material on the web, see e.g. see http:// farside.ph.utexas.edu/
teaching.html, Richard Fitzpatrick: Electromagnetic courses at 3 different levels
(introductory, intermediate, advanced level).

Examination
The examination on the theory part is in the form of a written exam (2022-10-24 am, 1 st
resit exam 2022-01-03 em). On the exam you may use: Chalmers-approved calculator,
enclosed formula sheets, dictionary (not electronic). To pass the course (grade 3), 40% of
the maximum points is required. Grade 4 requires 60% and grade 5 requires 80%, of the
maximum points. The laboratory part is examined separately (see below).

Lectures, demonstrations and practice sessions

The lectures are held mainly in Chalmers EDIT building (Linsen ES 52 and EL 41) with
a few exceptions in week 2 and week 6 where lecture rooms in the M building are used
for the Tuesday lectures. Course activities are mainly within the following timings

Tuesday 13.15-15.00 (week 2 and 6 13:15-17:00)

Thursday 13.15-17.00
Friday 13:15-17.00

where the practice sessions are held Thursday 15:15-17:00 and we have teacher assisted
self-study session Fridays 15:15-17:00. Note that the exact distribution between lectures
and demonstrations can change due to availability of teachers and other scheduling
issues. In particular,

Compulsory ethics lecture on September 2 15:15-17:00 in EL41 (Lars Ulander)

Presentation of laboratory work. September 9, 13:15-15:00 (ES52)
Presentation of hologram homework assignment. September 9, 15:15-17:00 (ES52)

Note that the Laboratory work is performed week 3-5 and has its own schedule outside of
the blocks above.
Week plans (preliminary)
Week 1: Maxwell’s equations
[Texts: Lecture notes, ch. 1.1-1.9 in Orfanidis]
Course introduction. Brief review of electromagnetics.
Maxwell’s equations.
Mathematical background.
Constitutive relations, conservation laws.
Compulsory lecture on Academic integrity, plagiarism, and unsanctioned collaboration.

Week 2: Uniform plane waves

[Texts: Lecture notes, ch. 2.1-2.10, 11.6-11.7 in Orfanidis]
Uniform plane waves in lossless media. Monochromatic waves.
Energy density and flux. Wave impedance, polarization.
Plane waves in lossy media: weakly lossy dielectrics, good conductors.
Inhomogeneous (or Complex) waves. Waves on a transmission line.
Presentation of hologram homework assignment.
Presentation of laboratory work.

Week 3: Plane waves, continued. Pulse propagation in dispersive media.

[Texts: Lecture notes, ch. 1.10-1.18, 3.5-3.6, 3.9 in Orfanidis]
Hologram homework assignment due Friday. Labs 1&2 start.
Simple models of dielectrics, conductors, and plasmas.
Kramers-Kronig relations. Group velocity, energy velocity. Group velocity dispersion
and pulse spreading. Slow, fast, and negative group velocities.

Week 4: Physics of two-level systems. Reflection and transmission.

[Texts: Lecture notes, ch. 5.1, 5.5, 6.1-6.3, 7.1, 7.4-7.8 in Orfanidis]
Lab 3 starts.
Excitation and de-excitation of a two-level system (radiative and collisional processes).
Black body radiation.
Reflection/transmission at normal incidence. Propagation matrices, matching matrices.
Antireflective coatings. Multilayer structures, dielectric mirrors. Oblique incidence and
Snel’s law. Fresnel reflection coefficients. Maximum angle and critical angle. Brewster
angle. Total internal reflection.

Week 5: Reflection and transmission, continued. Inhomogeneous media.

[Texts: Lecture notes, ch. 7.13, 7.15 in Orfanidis]
Geometrical optics. Ray tracing. Propagation in inhomogeneous media. Paraxial
approximation.

Week 6-7: Radiation and scattering. Physics of two-level systems, continued.

[Texts: Lecture notes, ch. 15.1-15.3, 15.5-15.10 in Orfanidis]
Lab report due week 7 Monday
Currents and charges as sources of fields. Gauge transformations. Retarded potentials.
What is radiation? Fields of electric and magnetic dipoles. Radiation fields. What is
scattering? Thompson and Rayleigh scattering.
Rabi oscillations. Radiative transfer in a medium with two-level systems. Mechanism for
amplification.

Week 8: Summary

Exercises and homework problems

A separate list of recommended exercises from Orfanidis’ book will be distributed during
the course (solution manual to chapters 1-2 can be found on the book homepage
www.ece.rutgers.edu/~orfanidi/ewa/). Some of the exercises will be distributed as
optional homework problems.

Home assignment with written & experimental examination: ”Design and fabricate
your own hologram”
The course contains a compulsory home assignment that will be examined both as a
hand-in through the online system by Thursday week 3, showing the result of the
numerical design of a hologram, and as an experiment conducted during one of the lab
exercises, showing how it works in practice. Before the home assignment, there will be a
special lecture that gives the course participants the necessary background (Tuesday 7/9
13-15, study week 2).

Laboratory exercises with written & experimental examination

The laboratory exercises are performed in groups of 2 students. Invitations to lab time
slots will be sent through Canvas.

There will be a lecture introducing the components and measurement techniques required
in the labs so that all students can come well prepared (Friday 9/9, 13-15, study week 2).
Separate lab-pm documents will be available in the online system for downloading during
the course. Please note that some homework questions, found in the lab-pm, should be
answered before coming to the lab.

There will be three separate 2-hour lab sessions, where all but the first consist of two
consecutive one-hour lab exercises. In total, each student will do 5 different lab exercises,
on the following topics:

• Lab 1 Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) using a Vector Network Analyzer

• Lab 2a Microwave TDR
• Lab 2b Optical TDR (OTDR)
• Lab 3a Test Your Own Hologram
• Lab 3b 3D Projection

For Labs 1 and 2 please come to room B518 and for Lab 3 gather in room B445. All labs
are in the north-west corner of the MC2-building at Kemivägen 9. B445 is on the same
level as the "Canyon" and B518 is just one floor up.

Each student will individually be assigned one of the 5 different lab exercises to hand in a
formal lab report on. The information on which of the labs you will be expected to report
on will be published on Wed. of Study Week 6, after all the lab exercises have been
performed by all the students, so you will need to take careful notes at all labs in case that
particular lab is chosen for you to submit a report on. Even though the labs are done in
pairs, each student must individually hand in a lab report, written in their own words,
taking care to follow recommendations for academic honesty (e.g. references to sources
of information and careful attention not to plagiarize). All lab reports will be checked for
plagiarism through the Ouriginal system.

The lab report is to be submitted through Canvas by Mon. of Study Week 7.

Course Evaluation
The course evaluation process should promote a dialogue between teachers and students
on how teaching can be developed and improved. Course representatives will be
randomly selected and presented during week 1. Meetings with the course representatives
will be held during study week 1 and study week 4 and the feedback from the students
will be published on the course website. A final meeting will be held 3-6 weeks into the
following study period to discuss the course and the results of a questionnaire.

Learning goals (to pass the course) and how they are examined
• Apply Maxwell's equations to analyse and solve wave propagation problems with
simple boundary conditions and interpret the results. (Exam)
• Analyse the propagation of plane and paraxial electromagnetic waves through
homogeneous and inhomogeneous lossy media, how the wave reflects/refracts at
dielectric and conducting boundaries and evaluate how the wave is affected by
dispersion and scattering. (Exam)
• Describe the mechanism for propagation and reflection of voltage waves along
transmission lines. (Exam)
• Explain what is meant by: characteristic impedance, wave impedance, complex
index of refraction, Poynting vector, phase velocity, group velocity, dispersion,
and scattering. (Exam)
• Perform calculations of blackbody radiation, and emission of waves by electric
dipoles. (Exam)
• Perform calculations of scattering of waves (e.g. Rayleigh and Thompson).
(Exam)
• Perform calculations on a two-level system (including stimulated emission,
spontaneous emission, absorption, collisions). (Exam)
• Describe physical mechanisms for emission and absorption of electromagnetic
waves, and methods to create and detect them. (Exam, Lab)
• Use computer tools to visualize electromagnetic field phenomena and design a
hologram. (Home assignment, Lab)
• Describe the working principles of basic photonic and microwave components,
which are based on wave phenomena. (Lab)
• Perform experimental work in the photonics and microwave areas. (Lab)
• Present clearly documentation of computer-based work and summarize the
experimental work in written form in English. (Lab report)
 • Perform scientific writing in an ethically justifiable manner, e.g. related to
plagiarism and authorship. (Compulsory lecture on Academic integrity and Lab
report)

Changes since last year's course

• Introduction of the teacher- assisted self-study sessions