Yes / This work presents the development of a new approach of modelling the source excitation and the penetration of structures by continuous propagating electromagnetic (EM) plane waves. The technique incorporates the solution of time-dependent Maxwell's equations and the initial value problem as the structures are illuminated by the plane waves. The propagation of waves from source excitation is simulated by solving a finite-difference Maxwell's equation in the time domain. Subgridding method is used to condense the lattice at the point of interest locally for observing field distribution in high resolution. The computational burden due to huge number of time steps has been eased by employing quasi-static approach. An example of induced EM fields near an underground pipeline runs parallel to a 132 kV overhead power transmission line (OHTL) has been presented which paves the way in the development of new approach of EM fields interaction modelling. / MSCRC

Optical interconnects based on CMOS compatible photonic integrated circuits are regarded as a promising technique to tackle the issues traditional electronics faces, such as limited bandwidth, latency, vast energy consumption and so on. In recent years, plasmonic integrated components have gained great attentions due to the properties of nano-scale confinement, which may potentially bridge the size mismatch between photonic and electronic circuits. Based on silicon nanowire platform, this thesis work studies the design, fabrication and characterization of several integrated plasmonic components, aiming to combine the benefits of Si and plasmonics. The basic theories of surface plasmon polaritons are introduced in the beginning, where we explain the physics behind the diffraction-free confinement. Numerical methods frequently used in the thesis including finite-difference time-domain method and finite-element method are then reviewed. We summarize the device fabrication techniques such as film depositions, e-beam lithography and inductively coupled plasma etching as well as characterization methods, such as direct measurement method, butt coupling, grating coupling etc. Fabrication results of an optically tunable silicon-on-insulator microdisk and III-V cavities in applications as light sources for future nanophotonics interconnects are briefly discussed. Afterwards we present in details the experimental demonstrations and novel design of plasmonic components. Hybrid plasmonic waveguides and directional couplers with various splitting ratios are firstly experimentally demonstrated. The coupling length of two 170 nm wide waveguides with a separation of 140 nm is only 1.55 µm. Secondly, an ultracompact polarization beam splitter with a footprint of 2×5.1 μm2 is proposed. The device features an extinction ratio of 12 dB and an insertion loss below 1.5 dB in the entire C-band. Thirdly, we show that plasmonics offer decreased bending losses and enhanced Purcell factor for submicron bends. Novel hybrid plasmonic disk, ring and donut resonators with radii of ~ 0.5 μm and 1 μm are experimentally demonstrated for the first time. The Q-factor of disks with 0.5 μm radii are                         , corresponding to Purcell factors of . Thermal tuning is also presented. Fourthly, we propose a design of electro-optic polymer modulator based on plasmonic microring. The figure of merit characterizing modulation efficiency is 6 times better comparing with corresponding silicon slot polymer modulator. The device exhibits an insertion loss below 1 dB and a power consumption of 5 fJ/bit at 100 GHz. At last, we propose a tightly-confined waveguide and show that the radius of disk resonators based on the proposed waveguide can be shrunk below 60 nm, which may be used to pursue a strong light-matter interaction. The presented here novel components confirm that hybrid plasmonic structures can play an important role in future inter- and intra-core computer communication systems. / <p>QC 20140404</p>

The main objective of this research is to model and analyse complex electromagnetic problems by means of a new hybridised computational technique combining the frequency domain Method of Moments (MoM), Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method and a subgridded Finite-Difference Time-Domain (SGFDTD) method. This facilitates a significant advance in the ability to predict electromagnetic absorption in inhomogeneous, anisotropic and lossy dielectric materials irradiated by geometrically intricate sources. The Method of Moments modelling employed a two-dimensional electric surface patch integral formulation solved by independent linear basis function methods in the circumferential and axial directions of the antenna wires. A similar orthogonal basis function is used on the end surface and appropriate attachments with the wire surface are employed to satisfy the requirements of current continuity. The surface current distributions on structures which may include closely spaced parallel wires, such as dipoles, loops and helical antennas are computed. The results are found to be stable and showed good agreement with less comprehensive earlier work by others. The work also investigated the interaction between overhead high voltage transmission lines and underground utility pipelines using the FDTD technique for the whole structure, combined with a subgridding method at points of interest, particularly the pipeline. The induced fields above the pipeline are investigated and analysed. FDTD is based on the solution of Maxwell's equations in differential form. It is very useful for modelling complex, inhomogeneous structures. Problems arise when open-region geometries are modelled. However, the Perfectly Matched Layer (PML) concept has been employed to circumvent this difficulty. The establishment of edge elements has greatly improved the performance of this method and the computational burden due to huge numbers of time steps, in the order of tens of millions, has been eased to tens of thousands by employing quasi-static methods. This thesis also illustrates the principle of the equivalent surface boundary employed close to the antenna for MoM-FDTD-SGFDTD hybridisation. It depicts the advantage of using hybrid techniques due to their ability to analyse a system of multiple discrete regions by employing the principle of equivalent sources to excite the coupling surfaces. The method has been applied for modelling human body interaction with a short range RFID antenna to investigate and analyse the near field and far field radiation pattern for which the cumulative distribution function of antenna radiation efficiency is presented. The field distributions of the simulated structures show reasonable and stable results at 900 MHz. This method facilitates deeper investigation of the phenomena in the interaction between electromagnetic fields and human tissues.

There is an increasing need for accurate models describing the electrical behaviour of individual biological cells exposed to electromagnetic fields. In this area of solving linear problem, the most frequently used technique for computing the EM field is the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method. When modelling objects that are small compared with the wavelength, for example biological cells at radio frequencies, the standard Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method requires extremely small time-step sizes, which may lead to excessive computation times. The problem can be overcome by implementing a quasi-static approximate version of FDTD, based on transferring the working frequency to a higher frequency and scaling back to the frequency of interest after the field has been computed. An approach to modeling and analysis of biological cells, incorporating the Hodgkin and Huxley membrane model, is presented here. Since the external medium of the biological cell is lossy material, a modified Berenger absorbing boundary condition is used to truncate the computation grid. Linear assemblages of cells are investigated and then Floquet periodic boundary conditions are imposed to imitate the effect of periodic replication of the assemblages. Thus, the analysis of a large structure of cells is made more computationally efficient than the modeling of the entire structure. The total fields of the simulated structures are shown to give reasonable and stable results at 900MHz, 1800MHz and 2450MHz. This method will facilitate deeper investigation of the phenomena in the interaction between EM fields and biological systems. Moreover, the nonlinear response of biological cell exposed to a 0.9GHz signal was discussed on observing the second harmonic at 1.8GHz. In this, an electrical circuit model has been proposed to calibrate the performance of nonlinear RF energy conversion inside a high quality factor resonant cavity with known nonlinear device. Meanwhile, the first and second harmonic responses of the cavity due to the loading of the cavity with the lossy material will also be demonstrated. The results from proposed mathematical model, give good indication of the input power required to detect the weakly effects of the second harmonic signal prior to perform the measurement. Hence, this proposed mathematical model will assist to determine how sensitivity of the second harmonic signal can be detected by placing the required specific input power.

The aim of this study is to analysis, investigate and find out the solutions for the problems associated with the implementations of antennas RFID Reader and Tag for various applications. In particular, the efficiency of the RFID reader antenna and the detection range of the RFID tag antenna, subject to a small and compact antenna's design configuration have been studied. The present work has been addressed directly to reduce the cost, size and increase the detection range and communication reliability of the RFID framework antennas. Furthermore, the modelling concept of RFID passive tags mounted on various materials including the novel design of RFID reader antenna using Genetic Algorithm (GA) are considered and discussed to maintain reliable and efficient antenna radiation performances. The main benefit of applying GA is to provide fast, accurate and reliable solutions of antenna's structure. Therefore, the GA has been successfully employed to design examples: meander-line, two linear cross elements and compact Helical- Spiral antennas. In addition, a hybrid method to model the human body interaction with RFID tag antenna operating at 900MHz has been studied. The near field distribution and the radiation pattern together with the statistical distribution of the radiation efficiency and the absorbed power in terms of cumulative distribution functions for different orientation and location of RFID's tag antenna on the human body have been demonstrated. Several tag antennas wi th symmetrical and unsymmetrical structure configurations operating in the European UHF band 850-950 MHz have been fabricated and tested. . The measured and simulated results have been found to be in a good agreement with reasonable impedance matching to the typical input impedance of an RFID integrated circuit chip and nominal power gain and radiation patterns.

"This thesis presents an implementation of the Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method on a massively parallel computer system, for the analysis of electromagnetic phenomenon. In addition, the implementation of an efficient mesh generator is also presented. For this research we selected the MasPar system, as it is a relatively low cost, reliable, high performance computer system. In this thesis we are primarily concerned with the selection of an efficient algorithm for each of the programs written for our selected application, and devising clever ways to make the best use of the MasPar system. This thesis has a large emphasis on examining the application performance."

<p>Laser beam control is important in many applications. Phase modulating spatial light modulators (SLMs) can be used to electronically alter the phase distribution of an optical wave-front and thus change the direction and shape of a laser beam. Physical constraints set limitations to the SLM and an ideal phase distribution can usually not be realised. In order to understand how such components can be used for non-mechanical beam control three nematic liquid crystal (NLC) SLMs have been thoroughly characterised and modelled.</p><p>The pixel structure and phase quantisation give a discrepancy between ideal and realised phase distributions. The impact on beam steering capability was examined by measurements and simulations of the intensity distribution in the far-field.</p><p>In two of the studied SLMs the pixel period was shorter than the thickness of the LC layer giving the optical phase shift. This results in a so-called “fringing field”, which was shown to degrade the phase modulation and couple light between polarisation modes. The deformation of the LC was simulated and a finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) algorithm was used to calculate how polarised light propagates through the optically anisotropic SLM.</p><p>Non-mechanical beam steering and tracking in an optical free-space communication link were demonstrated. Continual optimisation of the steering angle was achieved by feedback from a video camera.</p><p>The optical properties of the SLM in the time period right after a voltage update were studied. It was shown how light is redistributed between orders during the switching from one blazed grating to another. By appropriate choice of the blazed gratings the effects on the diffraction efficiency can be minimised.</p><p>The detailed knowledge of the SLM structure and its response to electronic control makes it possible to predict and optimise the device performance in future systems.</p>

Laser beam control is important in many applications. Phase modulating spatial light modulators (SLMs) can be used to electronically alter the phase distribution of an optical wave-front and thus change the direction and shape of a laser beam. Physical constraints set limitations to the SLM and an ideal phase distribution can usually not be realised. In order to understand how such components can be used for non-mechanical beam control three nematic liquid crystal (NLC) SLMs have been thoroughly characterised and modelled. The pixel structure and phase quantisation give a discrepancy between ideal and realised phase distributions. The impact on beam steering capability was examined by measurements and simulations of the intensity distribution in the far-field. In two of the studied SLMs the pixel period was shorter than the thickness of the LC layer giving the optical phase shift. This results in a so-called “fringing field”, which was shown to degrade the phase modulation and couple light between polarisation modes. The deformation of the LC was simulated and a finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) algorithm was used to calculate how polarised light propagates through the optically anisotropic SLM. Non-mechanical beam steering and tracking in an optical free-space communication link were demonstrated. Continual optimisation of the steering angle was achieved by feedback from a video camera. The optical properties of the SLM in the time period right after a voltage update were studied. It was shown how light is redistributed between orders during the switching from one blazed grating to another. By appropriate choice of the blazed gratings the effects on the diffraction efficiency can be minimised. The detailed knowledge of the SLM structure and its response to electronic control makes it possible to predict and optimise the device performance in future systems.

In the present thesis, computational methods for theanalysis and design of photonic bandgap structure areconsidered. Many numerical methods have been used to study suchstructures. Among them, the plane wave expansion method is veryoften used. Using this method, we show that inclusions ofelliptic air holes can be used effectively to obtain a largercomplete band gap for two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystals.An optimal design of a 2D photonic crystal is also consideredin the thesis using a combination of the plane wave expansionmethod and the conjugate gradient method. We find that amaximum complete 2D band gap can be obtained by connectingdielectric rods with veins for a photonic crystal with a squarelattice of air holes in GaAs. For some problems, such as defect modes, the plane waveexpansion method is extremely time-consuming. It seems that thefinite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is promising, sincethe computational time is proportional to the number of thediscretization points in the computation domain (i.e., it is oforderN). A FDTD scheme in a nonorthogonal coordinate systemis presented in the thesis to calculate the band structure of a2D photonic crystal consisting of askew lattice. The algorithmcan easily be used for any complicated inclusion configuration,which can have both the dielectric and metallic constituents.The FDTD method is also applied to calculate the off-plane bandstructures of 2D photonic crystals in the present thesis. Wealso propose a numerical method for computing defect modes in2D crystals (with dielectric or metallic inclusions). Comparedto the FDTD transmission spectra method, our method reduces thecomputation time and memory significantly, and finds as manydefect modes as possible, including those that are not excitedby an incident plane wave in the FDTD transmission spectramethod. The FDTD method has also been applied to calculateguided modes and surface modes in 2D photonic crystals using acombination of the periodic boundary condition and theperfectly matched layer for the boundary treatment. Anefficient FDTD method, in which only real variables are used,is also proposed for the full-wave analysis of guided modes inphotonic crystal fibers. / QC 20100629

Size reduction is a key issue in the development of contemporary integrated photonics. This thesis is mainly devoted to study some integrated photonic components in sub-wavelength or nanometric scales, both theoretically and experimentally. The possible approaches to reduce the sizes or to increase the functionalities of photonic components are discussed, including waveguides and devices based on silicon nanowires, photonic crystals, surface plasmons, and some near-field plasmonic components. First, some numerical methods, including the finite-difference time-domain method and the full-vectorial finite-difference mode solver, are introduced. The finite-difference time-domain method can be used to investigate the interaction of light fields with virtually arbitrary structures. The full-vectorial finite-difference mode solver is mainly used for calculating the eigenmodes of a waveguide structure. The fabrication and characterization technologies for nano-photonic components are reviewed. The fabrications are mainly based on semiconductor cleanroom facilities, which include thin film deposition, electron beam lithography, and etching. The characterization setups with the end-fire coupling and the vertical grating coupling are also described. Silicon nanowire waveguides and related devices are studied. Arrayed waveguide gratings with 11nm and 1.6nm channel spacing are fabricated and characterized. The dimension of these arrayed waveguide gratings is around 100 μm, which is 1--2 order of magnitude smaller than conventional silica based arrayed waveguide gratings. A compact polarization beam splitter employing positive/negative refraction based on a photonic crystal of silicon pillars is designed and demonstrated. Extinction ratio of ~15dB is achieved experimentally in a wide wavelength range. Surface plasmon waveguides and devices are analyzed theoretically. With surface plasmons the light field can be confined in a sub-wavelength dimension. Some related photonic devices, e.g., directional couplers and ring resonators, are studied. We also show that some ideas and principles of microwave devices, e.g., a branch-line coupler, can be borrowed for building corresponding surface plasmon based devices. Near-field plasmonic components, including near-field scanning optical microscope probes and left handed material slab lenses, are also analyzed. Some novel designs are introduced to enhance the corresponding systems. / QC 20100908