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Date:  Thu, May 07, 2026
Time:  3:00pm - 4:00pm
Location:  Holmes Hall 389; online available, check your email or contact the ECE office.
Speaker:  Saige Dacuycuy, candidate for PhD, advisor: Dr. Wayne Shiroma

ECE Graduate Students: This will count towards your seminar credit.

Abstract

The deployment of fifth-generation wireless new radio (5G NR) has provided high data rates, increased capacity, and low latency for electronic devices. However, since 5G NR operates at high frequency bands, challenges such as high propagation loss and signal interference due to blockages from structures and the environment become significant. To help combat this issue, reconfigurable reflectarrays are being piloted to provide non-line-of-sight communication between wireless networks and users with weak signal coverage. Reconfigurable reflectarrays are appealing because these devices offer a low-cost and versatile solution for dynamically changing wireless environments. Traditional reconfigurable reflectarrays rely on semiconductor components, such as PIN or varactor diodes, to demonstrate beam steering by modifying the phase of the unit cell. Although these semiconductor components are effective, these methods are restrictive on the design of the reflectarray’s unit cell. The objective of this research is to realize reconfigurable reflectarrays using electrically conductive materials such as graphene nanoplatelets, metallic thin films, and Galinstan liquid metal. Several reflectarray designs using these novel materials are fabricated and demonstrated to show anomalous reflection, showing potential use in 5G-and-beyond applications.

Biography

Saige J. Dacuycuy is a Ph.D candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He received a B.S. in Physics from Colorado Mesa University and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. His main research interests are in microfluidics and reconfigurable reflectarrays.