EPSRC Programme Grant awarded

Posted on 2011-05-06 14:05:00

A prestigious EPSRC Programme Grant has been awarded to a consortium led by the Antennas Group at QMUL. Called "The Quest for Ultimate Electromagnetics using Spatial Transformations (QUEST)", this grant, worth £4.6m over five years, teams our antennas engineers with physicists from the University of Exeter and the University of St Andrews, and materials scientists from the University of Oxford.

This ambitious project, beginning in July 2011, aims to introduce a paradigm shift in the manipulation of electromagnetic fields through the development and application of new theory, the creation of innovative computer-aided design tools, and the manufacture and characterisation of novel devices and systems enabled by the production of radically new materials. 

Recent UK-led breakthroughs in the theory of spatial transformations (STs), such as the possibilities concerning cloaking and invisibility, have caught both the scientific and popular imagination, and have stimulated a huge growth in related research around the world. The potential of the underlying ST approaches, however, have much wider applicability than cloaking alone, in arguably more important applications that span communications, energy transfer, sensors and security. However, theory and concepts are outstripping practical demonstration and testing, leading to a mismatch in what may be theorised and computed and what can be realised for impact in society and commerce. We aim to address these issues over the course of the project.

Furthermore, members of the QUEST team are participating in this summer's Royal Society Summer Exhibition.