Microwave transmission | EPFL Graph Search

Microwave transmission is the transmission of information by electromagnetic waves with wavelengths in the microwave frequency range of 300MHz to 300GHz(1 m - 1 mm wavelength) of the electromagnetic spectrum. Microwave signals are normally limited to the line of sight, so long-distance transmission using these signals requires a series of repeaters forming a microwave relay network. It is possible to use microwave signals in over-the-horizon communications using tropospheric scatter, but such systems are expensive and generally used only in specialist roles. Although an experimental microwave telecommunication link across the English Channel was demonstrated in 1931, the development of radar in World War II provided the technology for practical exploitation of microwave communication. During the war, the British Army introduced the Wireless Set No. 10, which used microwave relays to multiplex eight telephone channels over long distances. A link across the English Channel allowed Ge

Inflight Microwave Drying Process of Micro-droplets for High Resolution 3D printing

Kwanghoon Choi

A new Additive-Manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing concept is proposed to improve the printing resolution for metal additive manufacturing in the frame of the SFA-AM project, Powder Focusing for Beam-Induced Laser 3D Printing. The project aims to transport small powder particles (largest diameter < 10 um) at a high throughput to a spot smaller than 20 µm. To realize the objective, a metal ion included liquid is suggested as a source medium similar to the inkjet process, and the droplet is employed as a container for the metal ion transport. The key challenges of achieving this goal are 1) droplet size control and 2) efficient microwave heating that can dry the liquid portion of the dynamic droplet at a high-speed (3 m/s). The most demanding part is the development of a miniaturized, very concentrated field density microwave resonator where the droplet is passing through. This follows from the extremely short interaction time between the microwave and the ejected droplets (research: 0.5 ms) which results from the requirement for a small system size for its integration. The primary medium examined for the experiment is water due to 1) a high dielectric loss proportional to the drying efficiency and 2) avoiding explosion risks at the laser sintering stage compared to organic solutions. Various droplet generation conditions were investigated to determine the optimum conditions for the custom droplet generator, in particular, two key parameters were focused on: frequency and flow rate. The droplets obtained were analyzed with respect to size, gap distance, and linearity affecting the uniformity of the AM process. Moreover, Navier-Stokes-based fluid dynamics simulations enabled understanding of droplets behaviors, especially break-up formation. Eventually, the optimal condition for producing the smallest droplets with a diameter of 100 µm is determined to be 15 kHz and 0.5 ml/min. Such droplets loaded with metallic particles could result in smaller than 20 um of remaining metal powders aggregate after the drying process.A new TEM (Transverse ElectroMagnetic) resonator has been developed for drying and sensing applications. A full-wave electromagnetic simulation software, CST Microwave Studio, supported the working mode of the device. Firstly, it is used for the dielectric characterizations of different water-ethanol mixtures contained in a micro capillary. The sensing relies on electric field perturbation due to the inserted sample, and is measured based on the change of both resonance frequency and Q-factor. These sample-dependent variations were analyzed to estimate the complex permittivity using different methods such as the Perturbation Method (PM), Least-Square Model (LSM), and Log-Linear Model (LLM). This work demonstrates that the proposed microwave module is capable of sensing nano-liter volume ranges even though the samples only partially influence the sensing area (error < 13 % in permittivity). In microwave heating, the developed resonator achieved a temperature increase of 28 K in the microwave exposal time of 0.5 ms when the microwave power of 45 W was applied. Finally, numerical models have been proposed to estimate the maximum temperature of the initial droplet before cooling starts attributable to heat and mass transfer. This model well corresponds to the microwave electromagnetic simulation resulting in similar temperature deviations. It helps to determine the net heating efficiency of the microwave device.

EPFL2022

Microwave-to-Optical Transduction with Gallium Phosphide Electro-Optomechanical Devices

Simon Benjamin Klaus Hönl

Quantum computing is one of the great scientific challenges of the 21st century. Small-scalesystems today promise to surpass classical computers in the coming years and to enable thesolution of classically intractable computational tasks in the fields of quantum chemistry,optimization, cryptography and more.In contrast to classical computers, quantum computers based on superconducting quantumbits (qubits) can to date not be linked over long distance in a network to improve their computingcapacity, since devices, which preserve the quantumstate when it is transferred from onemachine to another, are not available. Several approaches are being pursued to realize such acomponent, one of themost promising to date makes use of an intermediary, micromechanicalelement that enables quantum coherent conversion between the information presentin the quantum computer and an optical fiber, without compromising the quantum natureof the information, via optomechanical interaction. This approach could allow fiber-opticquantum networks between separate quantum computers based on superconducting qubitsin the future.In this work a platformfor such a microwave-to-optic link was developed based on the piezoelectricmaterial gallium phosphide. This III-V semiconductor offers not only a piezoelectriccoupling between the electric field of a microwave circuit and a mechanicalmode, but also awide optical bandgap E_g = 2.26eV which reduces nonlinear optical absorption in the deviceand a large refractive index n(1550nm) = 3.01 which allows strong optical confinement atnear-infrared wavelengths.Importantly and in contrast to other approaches with gallium phosphide, an epitaxiallygrown, single crystal thin film of the material is integrated directly on a silicon wafer withpre-structured niobium electrodes by direct wafer-bonding. This opens up the possibility ofintegrating the device design presented here directly with superconducting qubits fabricatedwith this material system.A microwave-to-optical transducer design was simulated and fabricated in the galliumphosphideon-silicon platform. The device was found to exhibit large vacuum optomechanical couplingrates g0/2 pi ~ 290kHz and a high intrinsic optical quality factor Q >10^5 while at the same timepermitting electromechanical coupling to a microwave electrode. Coherent microwave-toopticaltransductionwas shown at room temperature for this device and the electromechanicalcoupling rate could be extracted from a model derived by input-output theory.The electromechanical coupling between the electro-optomechanical device and a superconductingqubit was estimated to be g/2 pi = O(200kHz) which indicates that strong couplingbetween the here presented device and a superconducting transmon qubit is achievable.In addition, superconducting microwave cavities with high quality factor at single photonenergy Q ~ 5x10^5 were fabricated and measured to verify that fabrication process of themicrowave-to-optical transducer is compatible with high-quality superconducting microwavecircuits.

EPFL2021

Ultra-low noise microwave signal generation with an optical frequency comb

Christophe Alexandre

Photonic synthesis of radio frequency waveforms revived the quest for unrivalled microwave purity by its seducing ability to convey the benefits of the optics to the microwave world. In this contribution, we will present a high-fidelity transfer of frequency stability between an optical reference and a microwave signal via a low-noise fiber-based frequency comb and cutting-edge photo-detection techniques. We will show the generation of the purest microwave signal with a fractional frequency stability below 6.5 x 10(-16) at 1 s and a timing noise floor below 41 zs Hz(-1/2) (phase noise below-173 dBc Hz(-1) for a 12 GHz carrier). This outclasses existing sources and promises a new era for state-of-the-art microwave generation. The characterization is achieved through a heterodyne cross-correlation scheme with lowermost detection noise. This unprecedented level of purity can impact domains such as radar systems, telecommunications and time-frequency metrology. The measurements methods developed here can benefit the characterization of a broad range of signals.

SPIE-INT SOC OPTICAL ENGINEERING2018