Fundamental Quantity and Equations for Electromagnetics from Classical to Quantum – Replacing 160-Year-Old Maxwell Equations of Fields and Potentials
Dr. Eng Leong Tan
Abstract
It has been 160 years now since Maxwell published his equations of electromagnetics (EM) in 1865. Today, these equations have been written in our familiar beautiful form, in terms of fields (E and B) frequently and potentials (A and phi) occasionally. However, since Maxwell-Hertz-Heaviside era, there have been longstanding dilemma to use either fields or potentials (or both) for EM, and for the potentials, which gauge condition should be imposed, e.g. Lorenz gauge, Coulomb gauge, etc. The present talk will introduce new gauge-invariant physical quantity of field-impulses for new fundamental equations of electromagnetics, which can unify all electrostatics, magnetostatics, electrodynamics and quantum-EM interactions. The concept and utilization of field-impulses will be shown to not only resolve the century-old field-potential/gauge dilemma, but also aptly describe quantum-EM (e.g. Aharonov-Bohm) effects. Therefore, in lieu of the traditional fields and/or potentials, the field-impulses can serve as the new fundamental EM quantities, which are useful for replacing the 160-year-old Maxwell equations and other (Lorenz/Coulomb/etc.) ones for classical and quantum. Theoretical formulation and efficient computation with fundamental implicit schemes of finite-difference-time-domain methods will be presented. Several mobile apps for technology-enhanced-learning of electromagnetics and circuits may also be demonstrated.
Biography
Eng Leong Tan (SM’06) received the B.Eng. (Electrical) degree with first class honors from the University of Malaya, Malaysia, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. From 1999 to 2002, he was with Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore and since 2002, he has been with the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, NTU. His research interests include computational electromagnetics (CEM), multi-physics (including quantum, acoustics, thermal), RF/microwave circuit and antenna design. He has published more than 130 journal papers and presented more than 90 conference papers. He and his students received numerous paper and project awards/prizes including: 2019 Ulrich L. Rohde Innovative Conference Paper Award on Computational Techniques in Electromagnetics, First Prize in 2014 IEEE Region 10 Student Paper Contest, First Prize in 2014 IEEE MTT-S Student Design Contest on Apps for Microwave Theory and Techniques, First Prize in 2013 IEEE AP-S Antenna Design Contest, etc. He was the recipient of the IEEE AP-S Donald G. Dudley Jr. Undergraduate Teaching Award with citation: “For excellence in teaching, student mentoring, and the development of mobile technologies and computational methods for electromagnetics education.” He has been actively involved in organizing many conferences, including General Chair of PIERS 2017 Singapore, TPC Chair of ICCEM 2020, APCAP 2018 (Auckland) and 2015 (Bali), as well as TPC Chair of IEEE APS/URSI 2021. He is a Fellow of ASEAN Academy of Engineering and Technology, and a Fellow* of the Electromagnetics Academy in recognition of distinguished contributions to “Computational electromagnetics and education”. He has been appointed as the IEEE AP-S Distinguished Lecturer for 2025-2027.