The electromagnetic spectrum between 1 and 100 Gigahertz, referred to as microwaves, is of tremendous importance for wireless communication, radar, and heating. Developing functional electromagnetic materials such as tailored dielectric ceramics and ferroelectric films in conjunction with a smart electromagnetic design represent the main challenges for our research.
High-Q resonant structures made from these functional materials, for example, enable the creation of new sensors for applications in material science, life science and security. Passing without attenuation through clothes and packaging materials, microwaves represent an orthogonal approach to X-ray. Our microwave near-field bottle scanner greatly increases the probability of detecting concealed threats.
Another of our ongoing research activities aims to create real-time bioliquid sensors, based on the high microwave absorption of liquids. High-Q resonant structures, in conjunction with micrometre scale evanescent field probes, enable contact-free mapping of the electrical properties of nanoscale materials like graphene.
Biography
Professor Norbert Klein received his PhD degree in Physics from the University of Wuppertal and his ’Habilitation’ from the Technical University of Aachen in Germany. Before he joined the Department of Materials at Imperial College London in 2009 as a Chair in Electromagnetic Materials, he worked at the Juelich Research Center in Germany and was a lecturer in Physics at the Technical Universities of Aachen and Dortmund. He is a distinguished research fellow at the National Physical Laboratory and his team at Imperial is closely linked with the NPL activities in microwave material characterization.
Within Imperial, he is associated with the Centre of Plasmonics and Metamaterials and the Institute for Security Science and Technology.
Professor Klein is the author of more than 150 refereed publications and holds several patents in microwave technology. He also has considerable experience in airport security, with his own spin-out company commercialising microwave sensors for checkpoint applications.
Tea and cake will be served in seminar rooms G01 and G02 before the lecture at 16.45