Radio wave absorbing materials (RAM) are commonly found amongst high-tech products such as LCD electronic devices, laptop and desktop computers. Electromagnetic wave absorbing materials are composed of dielectric materials mixed with ferrite, a magnetic material, with varying shapes and sizes. It should be capable of absorbing electromagnetic energy at normal and large incident angles over a wide range of frequencies. This requires the material to possess a large relative complex dielectric constant (permitivity £`r), as well as a large relative complex magnetic permeability constant (£gr). Due to the nature of the complexity of the RAM, which surpasses standard analysis techniques, we have derived, for this thesis, frequency-domain two-dimensional finite-difference formulas for modeling the electromagnetic behavior of RAM. This involves using a material that has a given £`r(1:10 range) and £gr(1:1000 range) which covers a vast range of indices of refraction. To reduce the computational domain, we took care of implementing the numerical absorbing boundary conditions, while also implementing material averaging schemes for the finite-difference coefficients that cover the region where sample medium changes. Simple numerical examples are included to verify our mathematical model. We also implemented an optimal one-dimensional multi-layered RAM design, designed by using a constrained optimization searching technique. Included in the thesis are two complete, practical, optimal designs considering available material parameters (finite loss tangent) as well as their actual manufacturing limitations (layer thickness).

A new model for the complex dielectric constant, ε, of aqueous ammonia (NH4OH) has been developed based on laboratory measurements in the frequency range between 2-8.5 GHz for ammonia concentrations of 0-8.5 %NH3/volume and temperatures between 277-297 K. The new model has been validated for temperatures up to 313 K, but may be consistently extrapolated up to 475 K and ammonia concentrations up to 20 %NH3/volume. The model fits 60.26 % of all laboratory measurements within 2σ uncertainty. The new model is identical to the Meissner and Wentz (2004) model of the complex dielectric constant of pure water, but it contains a correction for dissolved ammonia. A description of the experimental setups, uncertainties associated with the laboratory measurements, the model fitting process, the new model, and its application to approximating jovian cloud opacity for NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter are provided.

Au niveau industriel, les capteurs électriques de mesure de la teneur en eau dans les solides sont généralement mono fréquentiel. La fréquence de fonctionnement est choisie arbitrairement. Par contre, la sensibilité de la teneur en eau dépend du type de matériau et des liaisons d’eau existantes. D’une part, la fréquence de relaxation diélectrique de l’eau à l’état liquide est située dans la bande des Micro-ondes. D’autre part, la fréquence de relaxation diélectrique de l’eau liée dépend du matériau mais elle est dans la bande des Radiofréquences. En se basant sur cette hypothèse, le but de cette thèse consiste à analyser la sensibilité fréquentielle vis-à-vis les liaisons d’eau dans les solides en utilisant comme un paramètre intermédiaire la permittivité diélectrique complexe. La première partie du travail a eu pour objectif de valider deux cellules de mesure de type capacitive et coaxiale développées au CETIAT pour mesurer les caractéristiques diélectriques. Les deux cellules de mesure ont été validées pour mesurer la permittivité diélectrique complexe des liquides, solides et des produits humides dans la bande [1 MHz – 2 GHz] et une comparaison avec l’outil EpsiMu® développé par l’Institut Fresnel a été réalisée.En deuxième phase, nous étudions expérimentalement des matériaux humides en couplant la caractérisation électromagnétique avec la méthode thermo-coulométrique qui permet de mesurer et de distinguer sélectivement les liaisons d’eau existante dans un solide.À l’issue de cette phase, une étude paramétrique sur les spectres diélectriques complexes a été réalisée pour identifier des sensibilités par rapport aux fractions d’eau existantes. / This thesis is part of a European research project called METfnet (Metrology for Moisture in Solids).In industry, the electrical sensors for measuring the water content in the solids are generally mono-frequency and the operating frequency is chosen arbitrarily.The sensitivity to the water content depends on the type of material and the existing water bounds. On the one hand, the dielectric relaxation frequency of water in the liquid state is located in the microwave band. On the other hand, the dielectric relaxation frequency of the bound water depends on the material, but it is known that it’s situated in the radio frequency band.Based on this hypothesis, the aim of this thesis is to analyze the frequency sensitivity with respect to water bonds in solids by using as an intermediate parameter the complex dielectric permittivity.In the first phase of the work, we validate metrologically two instruments: capacitive and coaxial, both of them are developed at CETIAT for measuring the dielectric constant. The two measuring cells were validated to measure the complex dielectric permittivity of liquids, solids and wet products in the [1 MHz - 2 GHz] band and a comparison with the EpsiMu® tool developed by the Fresnel Institute was carried out. In the second phase, we experimentally study wet materials by coupling electromagnetic characterization with the thermo-coulometric method, which selectively measures and distinguishes existing water bounding forms in a solid.At the end of this phase, a parametric study on the complex dielectric spectrum was carried out to lead to the identification of sensitivities with respect to the existing water fractions.