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curriculum/EM Waves and Transmission Lines
section 10 of 102 min read

10. Reading List

  • Sadiku, Elements of Electromagnetics. The long-standing classic, friendly to first-timers and clear on the math we used here.
  • Hayt and Buck, Engineering Electromagnetics. Modern, lucid, with excellent worked examples. The standard for many EM courses.
  • Pozar, Microwave Engineering. The single best book on practical RF and microwave design. The Smith chart, matching networks, and S-parameters are covered in unmatched depth.
  • Cheng, Field and Wave Electromagnetics. Worked-example-heavy, with a strong treatment of waves and transmission lines.
  • Ulaby, Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics. Modern, with companion software for visualization.
  • Jordan and Balmain, Electromagnetic Waves and Radiating Systems. Older but deep; antenna and wave-focused.
  • Johnson and Graham, High-Speed Digital Design. The signal-integrity engineer's bible. Applies transmission-line theory to PCB-level problems where you need it most.
  • Smith Chart and matching: try the free scikit-rf library for Python. It reproduces every Smith-chart manipulation programmatically.

Forward references inside this curriculum:

  • Chapter 13 (Antennas): how transmission lines feed real radiators and how the field structures we computed propagate into free space.
  • Chapter 18 (Microwave Engineering): waveguides, S-parameters, network analyzers, RF amplifiers and mixers.
  • Chapter 20 (Optical Communications): same Maxwell's equations, just at much higher frequency, with optical fibers as the transmission medium and photodiodes as the receivers.
  • Chapter 24 (Hardware Security): TEMPEST, side channels, and EM fault injection from the attacker's and defender's perspectives.

The point of this chapter has been to give you the Maxwell-to-Smith-chart pipeline as one continuous chain of reasoning. Charges and fields produce wave equations; wave equations produce plane waves and intrinsic impedance; plane waves at boundaries reflect with coefficients; transmission lines are just guided plane-wave systems with characteristic impedance; reflections on lines are mathematically identical to reflections at dielectric boundaries; and the Smith chart is the geometric tool that makes the whole thing visual. Once that chain clicks, the next four chapters of the curriculum are downhill.