Dr Miguel Navarro-Cía MEng, MRes, PhD, SMIEEE, SMOSA, MInstP, MEOS, FHEA

• Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education, University of Birmingham, UK, 2019
• PhD in Engineering "Doctor Europeus", "Cum Laude", Universidad Pública de Navarra, Spain, 2010
• MRes in Introduction to Communication Research, Universidad Pública de Navarra, Spain, 2007
• MEng in Telecommunication Engineering, Universidad Pública de Navarra, Spain, 2006

Miguel Navarro-Cía qualified with a MEng in Telecommunication Engineering, a MRes in Introduction to Communication Research and a PhD in Engineering in 2006, 2007 and 2010, respectively, from the Universidad Pública de Navarra, Spain, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education in 2019 from University of Birmingham, UK.

From September 2006 to January 2010, and from February 2010 until March 2011, he worked as a Predoctoral Researcher (FPI fellowship recipient) and a Research & Teaching Assistant at Universidad Pública de Navarra, respectively. He was a Research Associate at Imperial College London and University College London in 2011 and 2012, respectively, and a Junior Research Fellow at Imperial College London from December 2012 until November 2015. Currently he is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Physics and Astronomy, and in the School of Engineering, University of Birmingham. He is also affiliated as a Visiting Researcher with Imperial College London and University College London.

He was a Visiting Researcher with the University of Pennsylvania (for three months in 2010), with Imperial College London (2008, 2009, and 2010 for four, six, and three months, respectively), and with the Valencia Nanophotonics Technology Center (for two months in 2008).

He was awarded the Best Doctoral Thesis in Basic Principles and Technologies of Information and Communications. Miguel received applications corresponding to the XXXI Edition of Awards “Telecommunication Engineers” 2010 and the CST University Publication Awards for the best international journal publication using CST Microwave Studio® (in 2012 and again in 2016) as well as being the recipient of the 2011 Junior Research Raj Mittra Travel Grant.

His current line of research focuses on plasmonics, TDS near-field imaging/spectroscopy, metamaterials, antennas and frequency selective surfaces at terahertz and infrared.

Moving away from academia, Miguel Navarro-Cia's personal interests embrace travelling and chess. He is FIDE Master (FM) with 1 norm for International Master (IM) and among his achievements he was runner-up at the Spanish Chess Championship under 18 in 1999 and at the Spanish Team Chess Championship with Navarra in 2011. Also, one of his pupils won the Spanish Chess Championship under 10 in 2002.

Physics

• MSci Y4 Projects
• BSc/MSci Y3 Group Studies - Robotics
• BSc/MSci Y1 Physics Labs

Engineering

• MEng/MSc/MRes Electromagnetics, Antennas and Propagation
• MEng/MSc/MRes Satellite, Mobile and Optical Communications
• MSc Projects

Current PhD students

• R. A. Alves, Transformation optics for nanoantennas and quantum emitters, University of Birmingham, UK.
• S. Freer, Evanescent field imaging at terahertz frequencies for biological applications, University of Birmingham, UK.
• A. Hayward, The structure and dynamics of of alcohol and sugar in aqueous solution, University of Birmingham, UK.
• A. Seedat, Optimised optical topologies for quantum technology using metasurfaces, University of Birmingham, UK.

Past PhD students

• V. Torres Landivar (2014) Plasmonics and Metamaterials at Terahertz Frequencies, Universidad Pública de Navarra, Spain.

Miguel Navarro-Cía’s research interests focus on the general fields of terahertz, plasmonics, and metamaterials.

Terahertz:

The terahertz frequency range (ca. 0.3 - 10 THz, i.e., λ = 30 μm - 1 mm) is particularly rich in spectral fingerprints. This includes low energy excitations in electronic materials, low-frequency vibrational modes of condensed phase media, and vibration and rotational transitions in molecules. This region of the spectrum has been less explored than others until recently, due to the lack of efficient and compact THz sources and detectors. THz technology promises significant applications on the areas of security (driven by the global concern of personal screening in public places), medical imaging and high-speed communication.

Miguel’s activity in this field encompasses two disciplines:

• Design of frequency selective surfaces for quasi-optical mesh filters, highly-confined surface waves and beam-shaping.
• Near-field time-domain microscopy for device (e.g. waveguides) characterization and for the investigation of sub-wavelength particles.

Achievements:

• Unify the description of confined THz surface waves based on periodically pierced metals using the transverse resonance method for transmission lines/equivalent lumped networks.
• Wideband highly-confined THz surface wave
• Discuss for the first time the effect of TE_m,n modes on finite-parallel-plate waveguide

Find out more about fundamentals and THz technology in Semiconductor TeraHertz Technology: Devices and Systems at Room Temperature Operation (Wiley-IEEE Press, ISBN: 978-1-118-92042-8)

Plasmonics:

The field of plasmonics is concerned with the science and engineering of optical interaction with the free electrons in metals and semi-conductors. It is meant to bridge the gap between the world of nanoscale electronics and microscale photonics, but it also holds promise in spectroscopy, imaging, quantum physics, nonlinearities, etc.

Miguel’s current interest in plasmonics is on nanoantennas for harmonic generation and ultra-wideband spectroscopy.

Efficient frequency conversion is commonly accomplished at the macroscopic scale in inorganic birefringent crystals. However, nonlinear crystals are several wavelengths in size, polarization-dependent, and phase-matching limited, which hinder the development of chip-scale tuneable nonlinear optical materials. In addition, to trigger the non-linear process, high intensity sources are required. Miguel and collaborators envision that broadband nanoantennas designed to operate at the fundamental and harmonics can potentially path the way for efficient nonlinear nanodevices with high frequency tune-ability and lower source intensity needs.

Currently, performing surface-enhanced spectroscopy experiments from the visible to the infrared regions is done designing and fabricating multiple plasmonics structures, which is time consuming and prevents the development of integrated sensors for monitoring simultaneously multiple spectral fingerprint regions or probing random molecular species. Had we a single platform enabling field enhancement from visible to infrared, this problem would be solved. Hence, Miguel et al. propose the use of broadband/multi-frequency antenna designs like the log-periodic antenna to overcome this limitation.

Achievements:

• Simultaneous surface-enhanced fluorescence, Raman and infrared absorption spectroscopies using a single broadband nanoantenna
• Effective χ⁽²⁾ from an only-metal nanoantenna of the order of nonlinear crystals
• Third harmonic generation enhancements of up to 10⁶ folds compared to an isolated ITO nanoparticle, with an effective third order susceptibility up to 3.5×10³ nm²/V² and conversion efficiency of 0.0007%

Metamaterials:

Metamaterials are artificial structures whose electromagnetic properties, represented by the electric permittivity and magnetic permeability, can be engineered by properly designing the building blocks (i.e. the repetitive sub-wavelength unit cell) to achieve extraordinary phenomena not observed easily in nature. This field has revolutionized the way we design and engineer new materials.

Great deal of research is being devoted to the underlying physics of metamaterials. However, Miguel’s attention is focused on developing quasi-optical devices with a twofold objective: (i) demonstrate experimentally certain properties such as effective negative refractive index, and (ii) propose metamaterial-based devices competitive in some aspects with the current technology. In particular, he is very keen on metamaterial-based lenses and wave plates given their compactness and potential free-space matching.

Achievements:

• First experimental demonstration of negative refraction on the fishnet metamaterial (also known also as extraordinary transmission metamaterial or stacked sub-wavelength hole array metamaterial) via the prism experiment
• Unveil the connection between the extraordinary transmission phenomenon and the fishnet metamaterial
• Quasi-optical devices (lenses, polarizers, etc.) based on the fishnet metamaterial competitive with classical metallic quasi-optical devices

Find out more about extraordinary transmission phenomena and their application for polarizers and effective negative refractive index metamaterials in Electromagnetic Response of Extraordinary Transmission Plates Inspired on Babinet’s Principle (Behaviour of Electromagnetic Waves in Different Media and Structures, ISBN 978-953-307-302-6)

Membership:

• Senior Member of IEEE
• Senior Member of OSA
• Member of IOP
• Member EOS
• Fellow of The Higher Education Academy

Editorial Board:

• IET Microwaves, Antennas & Propagation (The IET)
• Frontiers in Photonics – Plasmonics
• Advanced Electromagnetics
• Advances in Materials Science and Engineering (Hindawi Publishing Corporation)
• Radiophysics and Electronics

Reviewer:

• Referee for journals including Advanced Materials, ACS Nano, Nature Communications, Physical Review Letters, Advanced Functional Materials, Light: Science & Applications, Applied Physics Letters, New Journal of Physics, Nanotechnology, Physical Review B, ACS Photonics, Optics Letters, Scientific Reports, Optics Express, IEEE Transactions on Microwave, Theory and Techniques (IEEE-TMTT), IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation (IEEE-TAP), IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology, etc.
• Reviewer for conferences including APS/URSI since 2016, Meta’15, EuCAP since 2015 and the International Congress on Advanced Electromagnetic Materials in Microwaves and Optics (Metamaterials) since 2010.
• Reviewer for European Research Council (ERC).
• Reviewer for Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
• Reviewer for British Council Newton Fund Researcher Links and Institutional Links and related activities.
• Reviewer for the Czech Science Foundation.

11/2009 – date, Capitalist partner of the spin-off company Tafco Metawireless S.L.