This thesis investigates the behaviour of light in waveguides with cores composed of a negative refractive index material. The ability of these structures to drastically slow and even halt light pulses is studied. The Finite-Difference Time-Domain computational simulation method is used to simulate these structures and the results produced are compared against those from analytic calculations. It is observed that pulses in waveguides with thinner cores have smaller group ve- locities. By recording the change of the pulse's magnetic field with distance the pulse's effective refractive index is extracted and is found to match that calculated analytically. Reducing the magnitude of the core's intrinsic refractive index is also found to reduce the pulse's group velocity. Due to the loss present in current negative refractive index materials, a method of supplying gain to the propagating pulse was investigated. This was achieved by placing a strip of gain material within the waveguide cladding. The gain supplied is found to increase when the separation between the strip and core is decreased, when the width of the strip is increased and when the width of the waveguide's core is reduced. Including the gain material creates a frequency region where the pulse experiences gain and the real part of its effective index is negative. Through recording the change in the pulse's magnetic field over time its complex frequency was extracted. Using the pulse's energy velocity it was possible to convert between the complex frequency and complex wavevector. The use of a prism to couple to the waveguide was also examined. This allowed exceedingly slow modes, of the order of 0.00002c to be excited. It was discovered that keeping the prism in place once the light had coupled into the waveguide caused the value of the pulse's maximum wavevector component to shift.

This thesis is based on the research project of a W-band gyrotron backward wave oscillator (gyro-BWO) using a helically corrugated waveguide which is currently being built and upgraded in the University of Strathclyde. The gyro-BWO was optimally designed through numerical simulations to achieve an output maximum power of ~ 10 kW with a -3 dB frequency tuning range of 84 - 104 GHz. To increase the overall efficiency of the W-band gyro-BWO, an energy recovery system of four-stage depressed collector was designed, numerically optimized and fabricated on the gyro-BWO. Microwave components including the Bragg reflectors, the side-wall coupler, the three-layer microwave window and the pillbox window were designed, simulated and measured to facilitate the practical use of the energy recovery system. This thesis includes the analytically calculated results, the numerical simulations as well as the experimental results of the said components and system. A 14-section Bragg reflector together with the side-wall coupler located at the upstream of the helically corrugated interaction cavity was used to couple the microwave radiation out. This allowed the installation of the depressed collector at the downstream side of the gyro-BWO. The transmission coefficient of the coupler was numerically optimized to achieve -1.0 dB over the frequency tuning range, from 84 - 104 GHz. The Bragg reflector measurement agrees well with the simulation. The input coupler achieves an average -13 dB reflection over the frequency in the measurement. Theoretical analysis of the pillbox type window and multi-layer window based on mode-matching method was carried out. The simulation and optimization of the pillbox window achieved a reflection of less than -15 dB in the whole operating frequency range of 84 - 104 GHz. The three-layer window can achieve less than 30 dB reflection in the frequency range of 84 - 104 GHz in the simulation. A three-layer window and a pillbox window which particularly optimized in frequency range of 90 - 100 GHz (the operating frequency range of the gyro- TW A that shares the same experimental setup as the gyro-BWO) were fabricated. With manufacturing constraints the design of the three-layer window achieved an average -10 dB measured reflection in 84 - 104 GHz and better than -15 dB in 90 - 100 GHz. In the downstream side of the gyro-BWO, another 18-section Bragg reflector was used to reflect the radiation back into the upstream interaction cavity. And the transmission coefficient of -30 dB was obtained in the microwave measurements using a VNA, which means the microwave power leakage was less than 1%. The measurement results agreed well with the simulations. A four-stage depressed collector was designed to recover the energy from the spent electrons. The 3D PlC code MAGIC and a genetic algorithm were used to simulate and optimize the geometry of the electrodes. Secondary electron emissions were simulated and a few emission models were compared to investigate their effects on the overall recovery efficiency and the backstreaming rate for the multistage collector. The optimization of the shape and dimensions of each stage of the collector using a genetic algorithm achieved an overall recovery efficiency of about 70%, with a minimized backstreaming rate of 4.9%. The heat distribution on the collector was calculated and the maximum heat density on the electrodes was 240W/cm2 and the generation of "hot spots" could be avoided. The electric field distribution inside the depressed collector was calculated and the geometries of these electrodes were properly shaped to avoid the voltage breakdown in vacuum.

La corrosion et la dégradation des matériaux sont des problèmes majeurs qui impactent économiquement de nombreux domaines d’activités. Cette dégradation dépend de nombreux paramètres environnementaux. Dans ce cadre, le suivi de la dégradation des matériaux est primordial. L’objectif de cette thèse est donc d’élaborer des capteurs de dégradation de matériaux, sans fils et passifs énergétiquement. Pour cela, notre travail sera basé sur la technologie RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) passive. Nous présentons alors, des résonateurs sensibles à la dégradation et à la corrosion des matériaux. Celles-ci étant souvent liées à la présence d’eau dans le milieu environnant, une partie de la thèse concerne le suivi de l’absorption dans les revêtements organiques et les bétons. Afin de corréler la présence d’eau avec une dégradation du métal présent dans le diélectrique, un résonateur sensible au potentiel de corrosion est ensuite proposé. Pour finir, une étude sur la détection des sels dissouts dans le milieu est réalisée par ce type de technique. Suite à la présentation de ces résultats, une partie plus courte consacrée à la réalisation d’un démonstrateur sur la bande ISM autorisée à 2.45 GHz est présentée. Elle permet une discussion sur l’utilisation de ce type de capteur dans des situations réelles. / Corrosion and material degradation are major problems that economically impact many areas of activity. This degradation depends on many environmental parameters. In this context, monitoring the degradation of materials is crucial. The objective of this thesis is to develop materials degradation sensors that are chipless and wireless. For that purpose, this work will be based on passive RFID (Radio Frequency Identification). We present different resonators sensitive to the degradation and corrosion of materials. These are often linked to the presence of water in the environment; part of the thesis concerns the monitoring of the absorption in organic coatings and concrete. In order to correlate the presence of water with a degradation of the metal present in the dielectric, a resonator sensitive to the corrosion potential is then proposed. Finally, a study on the detection of dissolved salts in the medium is performed by this type of technique. Following these results, a shorter part of the realization of a demonstrator in the authorized ISM band at 2.45 GHz is presented. It provides a discussion about the use of this type of sensor in real situations.

Cette thèse a porté sur la conception d'un capteur de corrosion passif, sans contact de moyenne portée. Les solutions existantes sans fil concernent soit des capteurs à architecture classique, soit des solutions passives. Dans le premier cas, le capteur de corrosion est actif et peut être interrogé à longue portée. Dans le second cas, les solutions passives existantes ne fonctionnent qu’avec des distances de lecture de quelques centimètres du fait des basses fréquences utilisées. L’objectif de ce travail était de répondre à ce besoin. Pour cela, nous nous sommes inspirés de la technologie RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) passive chipless pour le développement d’un capteur basé sur une fonction hyperfréquence. La première structure réalisée a été une ligne microruban, dont le ruban est constitué d’une couche mince d’un élément sensible à la corrosion. Dans ce cas, la corrosion de la ligne s’est traduite par une variation d’amplitude du fait de l’apparition de pertes expliquées principalement par l’effet de peau ou la création de défauts. Une deuxième structure hyperfréquence a été élaborée en se basant sur un stub (circuit ouvert) qui a permis de suivre le processus de la corrosion via une variation de fréquence. Comme le cas de la ligne microruban, cette structure nous a permis de distinguer la corrosion uniforme et la corrosion localisée. Grâce à la mise en évidence de ces fonctionnalités, diverses stratégies de contrôle de la corrosion peuvent être imaginées et un démonstrateur a été réalisé. Le point clé du démonstrateur proposé est une augmentation de la distance de lecture dans la technologie RFID chipless, ceci a été rendu possible en considérant l’isolation Tx / Rx du lecteur. Dans ce contexte, trois types d’antennes ont été étudiées. Afin d’augmenter encore la distance de lecture, d’autres techniques d’isolation ont été proposées : l’utilisation d’un déphaseur mais aussi l’isolation temporelle par l’utilisation d’une ligne à retard SAW. Grâce à ces 2 méthodes, une distance de lecture de deux mètres a été obtenue. Suite aux caractérisations RF des métaux soumis à la corrosion discutées, nous avons aussi élaboré une sonde RF à champ proche permettant de diagnostiquer la corrosion de surfaces métalliques. / This thesis focused on the design of a passive wireless corrosion sensor. Existing wireless solutions concern either classic architecture sensors or passive solutions. In the first case, the corrosion sensor is active and can be interrogated at long range. In the second case, the existing passive solutions only work with reading distances of a few centimeters because of the low frequencies. The objective of this study was to respond to this need. That’s why; we were inspired by the RFID( Radio Frequency Identification) passive chipless technology for the development of a sensor based on a microwave function. The first structure was a microstrip line, of which the strip is composed of a thin layer of an element sensitive to corrosion. In this case, the corrosion of the line is proven by an amplitude variation due to losses principally explained by the skin effect or the creation of defects. A second microwave structure was developed based on a stub (open circuit) which allowed us to follow the process of corrosion via a frequency variation. Much like the microstrip line, this structure allowed us to distinguish between uniform corrosion and localised corrosion. Due to the highlighting of these features, different corrosion control strategies can be imagined and a demonstrator was executed. The key point of the proposed demonstrator is an increase in the reading distance in the chipless RFID technology; this was made possible by taking into consideration the isolation TX / Rx of the reader. In this context, three types of antennas were studied. In order to increase the reading distance, other isolation techniques were proposed: the use of a phase shifter but also a temporal isolation using a SAW delay line. Thanks to these two methods, a reading distance of two meters was obtained. Following the RF characterizations of metals exposed to the discussed corrosion, we also developed a near field RF probe, which allows corrosion diagnostic of metal surfaces.

En raison de la demande croissante de services de communication sans fil et de la limitation des ressources de spectre, la radio cognitive (CR) a été initialement proposée pour résoudre la pénurie de spectre. CR divise les systèmes transmetteurs-récepteurs de communication en deux catégories : les Utilisateurs Principaux (PU) et les Utilisateurs Secondaires (SU). PU a le droit légal d'utiliser la bande spectrale, tandis que SU est un utilisateur opportuniste qui peut transmettre sur cette bande chaque fois qu'elle est vacante afin d'éviter toute interférence avec le signal de PU. De ce fait, la détection des activités de PU devient une priorité principale pour toute CR.Le Spectrum Sensing devient ainsi une partie importante d’un système CR, qui surveille les transmissions de PU. En effet, le Spectrum Sensing joue un rôle essentiel dans le mécanisme du fonctionnement du CR en localisant les canaux disponibles et, d'autre part, en protégeant les canaux occupés des interférences de la transmission SU. En fait, Spectrum Sensing a gagné beaucoup d'attention au cours de la dernière décennie, et de nombreux algorithmes sont proposés. Concernant la fiabilité de la performance, plusieurs défis comme le faible rapport signal sur bruit, l'incertitude de bruit (NU), la durée de détection du spectre, etc. Cette thèse aborde les défis de la détection du spectre et apporte quelques solutions. De nouveaux détecteurs basés sur la détection des caractéristiques cyclo-stationnaires et la densité spectrale de puissance (PSD) du signal de PU sont présentés. Un algorithme de test de signification de corrélation canonique (CCST) est proposé pour effectuer une détection cyclo-stationnaire. CCST peut détecter la présence des caractéristiques cycliques communes parmi les versions retardées du signal reçu. Ce test peut révéler la présence d'un signal cyclo-stationnaire dans le signal de mélange reçu. Une autre méthode de détection basée sur la PSD cumulative est proposée. En supposant que le bruit est blanc (sa PSD est plate), la PSD cumulative s'approche d'une droite. Cette forme devient non linéaire pour les signaux de télécommunication. Distinguer la forme cumulative PSD peut donc conduire à diagnostiquer l'état du canal.La radio cognitive Full-Duplex (FD-CR) a également été étudiée dans ce manuscrit, où plusieurs défis sont analysés en proposant de nouvelles contributions. Le fonctionnement FD permet au CR d'éviter la période de silence pendant la détection du spectre. Dans le système CR classique, le SU cesse de transmettre pendant la détection du spectre afin de ne pas affecter la fiabilité de détection. Dans FD-CR, SU peut éliminer la réflexion de son signal transmis et en même temps réaliser le Spectrum Sensing. En raison de certaines limitations, le résidu de l'auto-interférence ne peut pas être complètement annulé, alors la crédibilité de la détection du spectre est fortement affectée. Afin de réduire la puissance résiduelle, une nouvelle architecture de récepteur SU est élaborée pour atténuer les imperfections du circuit (comme le bruit de phase et la distorsion non linéaire de l'amplificateur à faible bruit du récepteur). La nouvelle architecture montre sa robustesse en assurant une détection fiable et en améliorant le débit de SU. / Due to the increasing demand of wireless communication services and the limitation in the spectrum resources, Cognitive Radio (CR) has been initially proposed in order to solve the spectrum scarcity. CR divides the communication transceiver into two categories: the Primary (PU) or the Secondary (SU) Users. PU has the legal right to use the spectrum bandwidth, while SU is an opportunistic user that can transmit on that bandwidth whenever it is vacant in order to avoid any interference to the signal of PU. Hence the detection of PU becomes a main priority for CR systems. The Spectrum Sensing is the part of the CR system, which monitors the PU activities. Spectrum Sensing plays an essential role in the mechanism of the CR functioning. It provides CR with the available channel in order to access them, and on the other hand, it protects occupied channels from the interference of the SU transmission. In fact, Spectrum Sensing has gained a lot of attention in the last decade, and numerous algorithms are proposed to perform it. Concerning the reliability of the performance, several challenges have been addressed, such as the low Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), the Noise Uncertainty (NU), the Spectrum Sensing duration, etc. This dissertation addresses the Spectrum Sensing challenges and some solutions are proposed. New detectors based on Cyclo-Stationary Features detection and the Power Spectral Density (PSD) of the PU are presented. CanonicalCorrelation Significance Test (CCST) algorithm is proposed to perform cyclo-stationary detection. CCST can detect the presence of the common cyclic features among the delayed versions of the received signal. This test can reveal the presence of a cyclo-stationary signal in the received mixture signal. Another detection method based on the cumulative PSD is proposed. By assuming the whiteness of the noise (its PSD is at), the cumulative PSD approaches a straight line. This shape becomes non-linear when a telecommunication signal is present in the received mixture. Distinguishing the Cumulative PSD shape may lead to diagnose the channel status.Full-Duplex Cognitive Radio (FD-CR) has been also studied in this manuscript, where several challenges are analyzed by proposing a new contribution. FD functioning permits CR to avoid the silence period during the Spectrum Sensing. In classical CR system, SU stops transmitting during the Spectrum Sensing in order to do not affect the detection reliability. In FD-CR, SU can eliminate the reflection of its transmitted signal and at the same time achieving the Spectrum Sensing. Due to some limitations, the residual of the Self Interference cannot be completely cancelled, then the Spectrum Sensing credibility is highly affected. In order to reduce the residual power, a new SU receiver architecture is worked out to mitigate the hardware imperfections (such as the Phase Noise and the Non-Linear Distortion of the receiver Low-Noise Amplifier). The new architecture shows its robustness by ensuring a reliable detection and enhancing the throughput of SU.