Episode 4: The Terahertzian

In this episode of DARPA’s podcast series, Voices from DARPA, join program manager Dev Palmer of the Agency’s Microsystems Technology Office as he talks about turning an early interest in the vacuum tubes of his guitar amplifiers into a career as an electrical engineer. His mission? To push electronic and electromagnetic technology along new frontiers that could lead to more capable radar, electronic warfare, and communications systems, and even to entirely new technologies. In his few years as a program manager, Palmer has scored a world record with the fastest linear amplifier ever made; opened the way to vastly increasing the power output of high-frequency circuits by developing next-generation, miniaturized vacuum electronic devices; and pioneered novel approaches to integrating minuscule magnetic components into the already super-dense microcircuitry on chips. One more thing: with the time he spends commuting, Palmer has given some thought to what it would take to usher teleportation from the science fiction side to the reality side.