Dr Wojciech Smigaj, PhD

Room 602
Tel:- 020-7679-2831/2840
E-mail:- wsmigajmath.ucl.ac.uk
Fax: 020-7383-5519

Research Interests
Modelling of Optical Devices

My research is focused on the physics and numerical modelling of integrated optical devices, especially those employing novel structured materials, such as photonic crystals and metamaterials. I am particularly interested in the design of efficient numerical methods for simulations of these systems.

Currently, together with Dr Timo Betcke and other members of UCL, I am working on the development of a general-purpose open-source library for the solution of integral equations with the boundary-element method. Prospective applications of this library range from the modelling of periodic optical and elastic systems (photonic and phononic crystals) to the processing of data obtained by optical tomography for medical-imaging purposes.

Another area of my research concerns the use of coordinate mappings to accelerate the convergence of global approximations to the solutions of differential equations with discontinuous coefficients. Such techniques have already proved their value in the modelling of photonic and plasmonic devices, and could find application in other areas of physics. However, robust methods for automatic generation of optimum coordinate mappings are still lacking.

On a more physical side, I am also interested in the physics and design of nonreciprocal optical devices. These systems, in which the time-reversal symmetry of Maxwell's equations is broken due to (usually) the presence of magneto-optical materials, can exhibit unusual effects such as unidirectional light propagation. My research has involved the design of integrated nonreciprocal components known as isolators and circulators."

This page was last modified on October 6, 2011 by Helen Higgins