EE302 Introduction to Electrical Engineering, Fall 2017, 2019
Course Description: This course provides an introduction to some of the central elements of electric circuits, their application, and related issues. Topics covered will include the following: the scientific method, and general tools and approaches for problem-solving and analysis; fundamental physical phenomena and their connection to electrical systems; analysis and applications of analog resistive circuits, including Kirchhoff’s Laws, nodal and mesh analysis, Thévenin and Norton equivalents, and operational amplifiers; and technological, societal, and ethical issues that arise in electrical engineering. Substantial teamwork experience is included in the laboratory component of this course. The course will help students to build and understand the intellectual foundations that underlie much of electrical engineering, and to establish and appreciate connections between electrical engineering and basic sciences, mathematics, and liberal arts.
This course may be used to fulfill the natural science and technology (Part II) component of the university core curriculum and addresses the following four core objectives established by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board: communication skills, critical thinking skills, teamwork, and empirical and quantitative skills.
(EE360, ME 377K) Humanitarian Engineering Design, Fall 2018, Spring 2019
ECE Student Upasana Prabhu and ME Student Ashley Perez designed and prototyped a minimal lighting module for low-cost, easy installation in refugee camps. This solar powered module is designed to provide minimal lighting in and around refugee camp latrines in order to improve the safety of women and children using the facilities after dark. Upasana and Ashley worked incredibly hard to get this to work, and their poster won first place in the Poster Exhibition in Engineering Research (PEER) competition!
EE383V Quantum Electro-Optics, Fall 2018
Course Description: The field of Quantum Electro-Optics encompasses the set of devices, structures, and materials whose electronic and optical properties cannot be understood using the bulk properties of the constituent materials, but instead depend strongly on both size and geometry. Quantum Electro-Optics is an emerging contemporary area of research with a wide range of new applications. Understanding the optical properties of nanometer scale structures of semiconductors, metals, and composites will be crucial for future optoelectronic devices and technology designed to couple with, complement, or possibly even replace, present and future nanoelectronic devices. Separated from any electronic components, nano-scale or subwavelength photonic structures offer new possibilities for sensing, imaging, waveguiding, and many other applications. This course will examine the quantum mechanical interaction between light and semiconductors, metals, and composites; including plasmonics, cavity electrodynamics, polarition cavity condensation, sub-wavelength structures, metamaterials, plasmonics and applications. Presentations by students are included to develop oral communication skills as well as to incorporate leading-edge research into the course.
EE325 Electromagnetic Engineering, Spring 2017, Spring 2018
Course Description:
This course covers electromagnetic fields and waves fundamentals and their engineering applications, and includes: static electric and magnetic fields; energy storage; Maxwell’s equations for time-varying fields; wave solutions in free space, dielectrics and conducting media, transmission line systems; time- and frequency-domain analysis of transmission line circuits and Smith chart applications. Course Information: Prerequisite: Electrical Engineering 411, Mathematics 427J or 427K, Physics 303L, and 103N with a grade of at least C- in each; and credit with a grade of at least C- or registration for Mathematics 427L.
The objective of the course is to allow students to leverage the power of Mathematica to illuminate and illustrate core concepts in Electricity and Magnetism. The ability to study these concepts through both advanced analytical and numerical techniques will give students a tool-kit for describing, solving, and understanding both basic and perhaps more importantly, more complicated, E&M problems. The course will consist of two lectures per week. One will be a traditional chalkboard lecture while the second will include a significant computer-based component, in which the students walk through more complicated problems/concepts using Mathematica, along with the instructor. This is not, however, a course on Mathematica. No prior experience with the language is required, and the focus of the course will be on using basic Mathematica techniques for understanding E&M, as opposed to using E&M to teach Mathematica.
In addition, the work load for the Mathematica-based section will be adjusted to ensure that the students in this section are not spending more time on the course than their counterparts in the non-Mathematica section.