Dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) technologies are applicable to a wide variety of mobile wireless communication systems. The principal energy loss mechanism for this type of antenna is the dielectric loss, and then using modern ceramic materials, this may be very low. These antennas are typically of small size, with a high radiation efficiency, often above 95%; they deliver wide bandwidths, and possess a high power handling capability. The principal objectives of this thesis are to investigate and design DRA for low profile personal and nomadic communications applications for a wide variety of spectrum requirements: including DCS, PCS, UMTS, WLAN, UWB applications. X-band and part of Ku band applications are also considered. General and specific techniques for bandwidth expansion, diversity performance and balanced operation have been investigated through detailed simulation models, and physical prototyping. The first major design to be realized is a new broadband DRA operating from 1.15GHz to 6GHz, which has the potential to cover most of the existing mobile service bands. This antenna design employs a printed crescent shaped monopole, and a defected cylindrical DRA. The broad impedance bandwidth of this antenna is achieved by loading the crescent shaped radiator of the monopole with a ceramic material with a permittivity of 81. The antenna volume is 57.0  37.5  5.8 mm3, which in conjunction with the general performance parameters makes this antenna a potential candidate for mobile handset applications. The next class of antenna to be discussed is a novel offset slot-fed broadband DRA assembly. The optimised structure consists of two asymmetrically located cylindrical DRA, with a rectangular slot feed mechanism. Initially, designed for the frequency range from 9GHz to 12GHz, it was found that further spectral improvements were possible, leading to coverage from 8.5GHz to 17GHz. Finally, a new low cost dual-segmented S-slot coupled dielectric resonator antenna design is proposed for wideband applications in the X-band region, covering 7.66GHz to 11.2GHz bandwidth. The effective antenna volume is 30.0 x 25.0 x 0.8 mm3. The DR segments may be located on the same side, or on opposite sides, of the substrate. The end of these configurations results in an improved diversity performance. / General Secretariat of Education and Scientific Research Libya

<p>The thesis intends to explain in full detail the developed techniques and approaches for the modeling, design, and sensitivity analysis of nano-plasmoic structures. However, some examples are included for audiences of general microwave background. Although the thesis is mainly focused on simulation-based techniques, analytical and convex optimization approaches are also demonstrated. The thesis is organized into two parts. Part 1 includes Chapters 2-4, which cover the simulation-based modeling and sensitivity analysis approaches and their applications. Part 2 includes Chapters 5 and 6, which cover the analytical optimization approaches.</p> / <p>We propose novel techniques for modeling, adjoint sensitivity analysis, and optimization of photonic and nano-plasmonic devices. The scope of our work is generalized to cover microwave, terahertz and optical regimes. It contains original approaches developed for different categories of materials including dispersive and plasmonic materials. Artificial materials (metamaterials) are also investigated and modeled. The modeling technique exploits the time-domain transmission line modeling (TD-TLM) technique. Generalized adjoint variable method (AVM) techniques are developed for sensitivity analysis of the modeled devices. Although TLM-based, they can be generalized to other time-domain modeling techniques like finite difference time-domain method (FDTD) and time-domain finite element method (FEM).</p> <p>We propose to extend the application of TLM-based AVM to photonic devices. We develop memory efficient approaches that overcome the limitation of excessive memory requirement in TLM-based AVM. A memory reduction of 90% can be achieved without loss of accuracy and at a more efficient calculation procedure. The developed technique is applied to slot waveguide Bragg gratings and a challenging dielectric resonator antenna problem.</p> <p>We also introduce a novel sensitivity analysis approach for materials with dispersive constitutive parameters. To our knowledge, this is the first wide-band AVM approach that takes into consideration the dependence of material properties on the frequency. The approach can be utilized for design optimization of innovative nano-plasmonic structures. The design of engineered metamaterial is systematic and efficient. Beside working with engineered new designs, dispersive AVM can be utilized in bio-imaging applications. The sensitivity of the objective function with respect to dispersive material properties enables the exploitation of parameter and gradient based optimization for imaging in the terahertz and optical regimes. Material resonance interaction can be easily investigated by the provided sensitivity information.</p> <p>In addition to the developed techniques for simulation-based optimization, several analytical optimization algorithms are proposed to foster the parameter extraction and design optimization in terahertz and optical regimes. In terahertz time-domain spectroscopy, we have developed an efficient parameter based approach that utilizes the pre-known information about the material. The algorithm allows for the estimation of the optical properties of sample materials of unknown thicknesses. The approach has been developed based on physical analytical dispersive models. It has been applied with the Debye, Lorentz, Cole-Cole, and Drude model.</p> <p>Furthermore, we propose various algorithms for design optimization of coupled resonators. The proposed algorithms are utilized to transform a highly non-linear optimization problem into a linear one. They exploit an approximate transfer function of the coupled resonators that avoids negligible multiple reflections among them. The algorithms are successful for the optimization of very large-scale coupled microcavities (150 coupled ring resonators).</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)