About

Jordan Budhu received his Ph.D.E.E from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2018 under the advisement of Professor Yahya Rahmat-Samii in the Antenna Research, Analysis, and Measurement (ARAM) Laboratory, after earning his M.S.E.E. degree with Distinction in 2010 from California State University Northridge under the advisement of Professor Sembiam Rengarajan. Throughout his academic career, Budhu has won many awards and has taught in the field of electromagnetics. He worked at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2011 and 2012. He was named a UCLA Teaching Fellow in 2018 after teaching more than seven quarters. From 2019 - 2022, Budhu was a postdoctoral research fellow with the University of Michigan in Professor Tony Grbic’s Lab. He is now the Steven O. Lane Junior Faculty Fellow in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Optics
• Mathematical analysis
• Telecommunications
• Physics
• Materials science
• Mathematics
• Acoustics
• Electronic engineering
• Engineering
• Electrical engineering

Selected publications

• An SIE-IBC and Adjoint Variable Method Approach for 3D Planar and Conformal Composite Anisotropic Metasurface Design

  IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation · 2026-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  A technique for the design of planar or conformal, reconfigurable or static, composite, anisotropic, metasurfaces is presented. The metasurfaces consist of arbitrarily shaped homogeneous dielectric bodies partially or wholly covered in conformal anisotropic impedance sheets and/or metallic surfaces. The forward solver is based on a surface integral equation featuring the impedance boundary condition (SIE-IBC). By evoking Love’s equivalence principle, meshing the volume of the dielectric is avoided and the free space Green’s function enabled. The design occurs in three stages. In a first stage, a homogenized complex-valued impedance sheet necessary to support a desired field transformation is obtained via a direct solve of the SIE-IBC. In a second stage, the complex-valued impedance sheet is converted to a purely reactive sheet via adjoint variable optimization of the reactances retained from stage 1 and resistances discarded. The optimization introduces power balancing surface waves which reshape the power density normal to the metasurface. As a result, the purely passive and lossless metasurface performs wavefront transformations which are normally associated with active surfaces. This allows, in a third stage, the metasurface to be realized using simple conformal printed circuits. Several examples designed using the three stage approach are provided including a varactor studded reconfigurable metasurface, a sinusoidally-shaped, pin-fed, leaky wave antenna, and a doubly curved conformal metasurface patterned using a Goldberg polyhedron discretization technique.

  PublisherDOI

• A New Homogenization-Free Boundary Condition Towards Aperiodic Metasurface Design Using Full-Wave Surrogate Models of Printed Circuits

  2025-07-13

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Applications of Reflectarray Technology for Radio Astronomy Interference Mitigation

  2025-03-30

  article

  High-gain reflector antennas commonly used to make observations in radio astronomy are especially susceptible to the reception of undesirable radiation through their sidelobes. One source of this radiation is megaconstellations associated with satellite based communications systems. In this paper, we present some recent advances in the application of reflectarrays for mitigation of interference from these megaconstellations. By placing a reflectarray along the rim of a reflector and thereby repurposing reflections to generate destructive interference to unwanted incoming radiation, interference can be nulled. The first example is a dual band reflectarray capable of producing a null to track interference throughout the sidelobe envelope in two frequency bands associated with Iridium and Starlink satellite systems. The second example is a proof-of-concept demonstration utilizing a C-band planar reflectarray of which the elements along its perimeter are made reconfigurable. Both examples point to the possibility of utilizing reflectarrays for radio astronomy interference mitigation.

  PublisherDOI

• Parity-Time Symmetry and Leaky Wave Antennas: A Generalized Dispersion Equation

  IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation · 2025-04-04

  articleSenior author

  A generalized dispersion equation is derived featuring coupled mode theory, parity-time symmetry, and leaky wave antennas of arbitrary periodic modulation. It can be specialized to each of these cases individually or can describe a structure containing all three electromagnetic phenomena simultaneously in a single antenna. This very general dispersion equation is derived using both mode matching and the transverse resonance method, the latter lacking the ability to provide the field descriptions and wave impedances with the advantage of computational simplicity. The dispersion equation is first used to design a parity time symmetric waveguide consisting of conjugate impedance sheets coupled in close proximity. The example shows both the eigenvalues (wavenumbers) and eigenvectors (modes) coalescing at a single point in the parameter space known as the exceptional point. In another example, the same dispersion equation is again used to model a sinusoidally modulated reactive sheet (SMRS) supported by an active impedance sheet backed dielectric spacer. The active impedance sheet is designed to compensate for the SMRS radiative leakage loss when coupled in close proximity. Hence, each spatial harmonic is described by a purely real wavenumber despite the radiative losses to the open far field channel. Plots of the spatial harmonics show a constant amplitude envelope and hence leaky wave radiation is generated from spatial harmonics which do not decay as they leak. Full wave simulations corroborate our results.

  PublisherDOI

• Design, Fabrication, and Measurement of a Hemispherical Multi-Layer Band-Pass Frequency Selective Surface

  ArXiv.org · 2025-11-20 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  A hemispherical multilayer wide-band (7-13 GHz) band-pass frequency selective surface (FSS) is reported. A new design technique based on a Goldberg discretization and unit cell scaling technique is introduced to accommodate the curved profile of the FSS. The FSS is additively manufactured by sequentially printing dielectric layers and metallic patterns until 3 patterned silver-ink surfaces are integrated within a 4.5 mm (${λ_0}/6$ at 10 GHz) thick ABS hemispherical radome. The diameter and the height of the realized hemispherical FSS are around $5{λ_0}$ and $3{λ_0}$ respectively. Measurements demonstrate a roughly 1.7 dB insertion loss in the passband and 15-20 dB rejection in the stop-band. Additionally, a new postprocessing technique is used to suppress the effects of edge diffraction in the measured transmission spectrum. The design process, manufacturing technique, and measurement postprocessing represent novel advancements enabling future conformal frequency selective surfaces.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• An Analytic Design Approach for Conformal Leaky Wave Antennas

  2025-09-01

  articleSenior author

  A fully analytic approach is presented for the design of a sinusoidally shaped conformal Leaky Wave Antenna (LWA). The approach is based on differential geometry formulations of arc-lengths and ray tangents for conformal rays emanating from a central feed pin. A Voronoi patterning technique is used to realize the necessary surface impedance to generate a far-field beam in a desired direction as obtained from the holography approach. Full-wave simulations validate the design. The analytic design approach presented paves the way for conformal LWA designs without the need to incorporate costly full-wave simulations into the design stage.

  PublisherDOI

• Design and Experimental Demonstration of an X-Band Hemispherically-Shaped Conformal Frequency Selective Surface

  2025-07-13

  article1st authorCorresponding

  A technique to design hemispherically shaped conformal frequency selective surfaces (FSS) is presented. The technique utilizes a Goldberg polyhedron discretization resulting in hexagonal unit cells. The hexagonal unit cells are populated with a multilayered stack of three metallic claddings separated by dielectric spacers. The arrangement forms a passband covering the X-band. A geometrical scaling technique is used to compensate for varying unit cell dimensions associated with the Goldberg polyhedron. Full-wave simulations of the conformal FSS show excellent agreement with the theoretical performance predicted by unit cell simulations. The FSS was fabricated using a 5-axis additive manufacturing technique using ABS plastic and conductive silver paste. Measured results show good agreement throughout the passband. A special postprocessing technique was developed to synthesize an effective Gaussian beam illumination from far field data. The technique provides improved agreement in the stopband where edge diffraction can be significant in the ideally zero field region.

  PublisherDOI

• Wideband Reflectarray Design for CubeSat Applications in X-Band

  2025-03-30

  article

  This paper reports on the design of a reflectarray for CubeSat applications. In an effort to industrialize the concept, a wideband unit cell is selected to cover a significant part of the X-band, corresponding to identified use cases for the technology, specifically the band 7-10 GHz. A modular approach with panels of about 6U in size is selected. The nominal configuration uses 3 panels with a two-step deployment sequence. It is designed to provide a gain higher than 26 dBi across the operating bandwidth with adequate tuning of the unit-cell layout. More panels may be added to achieve higher gain values, at the expense of a more complex deployment sequence. A key aspect of the design is the unit-cell. Numerical results are reported, confirming its stability across the targeted bandwidth. A preliminary design of a 3-panel reflectarray is also provided, confirming the good focusing properties of the proposed configuration.

  PublisherDOI

• Non-Decaying Leaky Surface Waves

  2024-09-09 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  A Sinusoidally Modulated Reactive Sheet (SMRS) can be designed to support TE or TM surface wave propagation with at least one spatial harmonic within the light cone. Due to radiative losses associated with the spatial harmonics within the light cone, the wavenumber of the fundamental surface wave is complex. In this work, we compensate the loss associated with the leakage by coupling the SMRS to an active impedance sheet. Solving the dispersion relation for the coupled configuration shows that at a particular modulation depth, the wavenumber associated with the dominant surface wave is purely real despite the radiative losses. Although an exceptional point has not been observed, the structure is reminiscent of the balanced gain and loss configuration of coupled waveguides exhibiting parity-time symmetry except here the loss is due to leaky wave radiation.

  PublisherDOI

• Aperiodic metasurface synthesis techniques and designs

  Elsevier eBooks · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Perfect Electromagnetic Teleporting Metasurface Wormholes

  NSF · $343k · 2023–2026

Frequent coauthors

• Anthony Grbic

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  43 shared

• Yahya Rahmat‐Samii

  University of California, Los Angeles

  15 shared

• S. Young

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  13 shared

• Sanjay Krishna

  Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani

  8 shared

• Luke Szymanski

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  6 shared

• Christopher Ball

  The Ohio State University

  6 shared

• Nicole Pfiester

  Rose–Hulman Institute of Technology

  6 shared

• K. K. Choi

  6 shared

Labs

• Virginia Tech Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer EngineeringPI

Education

• Ph.D., Electrical Engineering

  University of Michigan

• M.S., Electrical Engineering

  University of California, Los Angeles

• B.S., Electrical Engineering

  University of California, Los Angeles

Awards & honors

• First place award for undergraduate senior project
• Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship
• Best Poster award at the IEEE Coastal Los Angeles Class-Tech…
• Finalist for the USNC-URSI Ernst K. Smith Student Paper Comp…
• First place award for best paper at the 2019 Boulder Nationa…