Mission Statement
The EMLab was founded to develop revolutionary technologies in electronics, electromagnetics, photonics, and digital manufacturing. We are actively developing some of the most ambitious and disruptive technologies happening today. We were the first to automate hybrid direct-write 3D printing, giving us the unique capability to make complicated multi-material parts composed of metals, plastics, and other materials. We are using this to explore 3D and conformal circuits, new antennas, metamaterials, metasurfaces, frequency selective surfaces, photonic crystals and more. We have designed, manufactured, and tested devices from radio frequencies up to optical frequencies. Our research interests also include numerical algorithms, spatially variant lattices, device simulations, optimizations, and more.
Our Research Areas
EMLab Capabilities
The EMLab is fully equipped to design, manufacture, and test paradigm-changing electrical and electromagnetic devices. Our capabilities begin with a world-class suite of design, optimization, and simulation tools that are being used to make new discoveries and breakthroughs across the frequency spectrum. Our specialized tools include simulation methods specifically tailored for dielectric devices, a custom 3D circuit layout, and routing tool, and a custom slicer software capable of processing CAD files for hybrid printing, conformal printing, off-axis printing, and printing of functionally-graded materials.
The EMLab manufacturing capabilities include numerous 3D printers and assembly stations. Two of these printers are advanced hybrid systems that can build parts containing metals, plastics, and many other types of materials. Additional tools and processes are also available including high-power lasers, pick-and-place, milling, and others. The EMLab is the only lab in the world with the combined software and printing hardware to build three-dimensional parts with an arbitrary distribution of metals, plastics, and other materials. This capability is being used to explore many kinds of 3D circuits and electromagnetic devices.
The EMLab also maintains a powerful suite of characterization and testing facilities including an anechoic chamber for free space antenna and frequency selective surface measurements, and multiple fixtures for measuring electromagnetic properties of materials including loss tangent, permittivity, permeability, and anisotropy.
To view a complete list of specific EMLab capabilities, including manufacturing and test equipment parameters, please visit the EMLAB Capabilities page.
The EMLab Team
Professor Rumpf directs the EM Lab and has the extraordinary privilege of mentoring and coaching the top students at the University of Texas at El Paso. Every day is an exciting and humbling experience for him.
Dr. Aditya brings tremendous expertise in materials and 3D printing to the EM Lab. He is developing processes to print new materials and to print metall-dielectric structures via hybrid 3D printing.
Dr. Gutierrez combines art and science with an emphasis on education. For his graduate work, he explore new concepts and applications in spatially-variant photonic crystals.
Edgar has an extreme talent for computation and simulation. He is developing specialized simulation, optimization, and visualization tools specifically tailored for 3D electromagnetic devices. He is active in finite element method (FEM), finite-difference time-domain (FDTD), finite-difference frequency-domain (FDFD), ray tracing, and many more.
Noel is exploring spatially-variant self-collimating photonic crystals for multiple applications including routing of light, photon funnels, refractionless lenses, and lattices with multiplexed functionality.
Manuel is developing an advanced set of numerical tools that, if successful, will usher in a new generation of metamaterial devices with dramatically expanded bandwidth, field-of-view, and other performance metrics.
Sarah is exploring advanced metamaterials enabled by digital manufacturing that will lead to breakthroughs in antennas and other electromagnetic devices.
Morgan's research is making significant contributions in the field of computational electromagnetics and photonics. His research is focused on developing advanced simulation, optimization, and visualization tools. The devices he is exploring include 3D spatially-variant photonic crystals for controlling the flow of light and antireflection structures for photonic crystals with extreme performance. With his active involvement in simulation tools such as finite-difference frequency-domain (FDFD), plane-wave expansion method (PWEM), rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA), and bianisotropic transfer matrix method (BTMM), Morgan is consistently pushing the boundaries of what is possible in this rapidly-evolving field.
Raquel is developing simulation tools specialized for surface plasmon polaritons with applications in sensing.
Jennifer loves challenging research and is exploring how 3D printing chiral metamaterials can improve the performance of antennas and other electromagnetic devices.
Yael's research is focused on learning the art of hybrid printing of electromagnetic devices. His research involves developing hybrid printing process for new and difficult materials, such as high temperature polymers.
Eric has a broad range of interests in 3D printing and electromagnetic design. He is currently learning about the projects happening in the EM Lab and will be incorporating the technology into his senior design project.
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