Date of Award

2012

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Electrical Engineering

First Advisor

Oughstun, Kurt

Abstract

The dynamical evolution of an ultrawideband electromagnetic pulse as it propagates through a temporally dispersive and attenuative medium is a classical problem in electromagnetic wave theory with considerable practical importance dating back to seminal works conducted in 1914. With the use of modern asymptotic theory and numerical techniques, propagation of canonical pulses into complex (attenuative and dispersive) media have been analyzed and recently extended to nonlinear materials. The materials of interest for this research are modeled after realistic biological tissues. The mathematically rigorous and more accurate physical model of electromagnetic energy transfer into the biological materials modeled will be used as input to the FitzHugh-Nagumo circuit equivalent model for an excitable neuron. This detailed analysis will provide a new point of view to working groups and standardization committees in the eld of non-ionizing radiation safety that is based on so-called athermal effects.

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