This dissertation presents the rectifying antennas potential for harvesting solar power, along with a novel design for a solar rectenna. The suns general features and the characteristics of solar radiation as an electromagnetic wave are treated in depth in order to determine the deficiencies of traditional rectennas as a solar cell. A closed form equation for a MIM rectifiers efficiency as a function of its input power was developed and verified by a simulated behavioral model and measurements. A unique calculation method was also developed to determine the available solar power at the terminal of a [lambda]/2 dipole antenna as a function of its bandwidth. The available power for each diode at the antennas terminal was found to be insufficient for a MIM diode to operate in its high efficiency region. It was concluded that the MIM diode requires an array of high gain antennas to increase the solar power captured at its input in order to operate in its high efficiency region. A dielectric rod antenna is proposed as the high gain antenna element for the solar antenna. In order to minimize losses due to the skin effect in the feed system of the array, a non-radiative dielectric (NRD) wave guide is proposed as the feed structure for the solar array antenna. To increase the rectification efficiency of the solar rectenna, two improvements were introduced: 1) the solar antenna was modified to function as a dual polarized antenna; and 2) a novel technique was used to achieve full-wave rectification. Test results of prototypes of the proposed solar antennas and arrays, show them to be potentially far superior to traditional [lambda]/2 dipole antennas for collecting solar radiation. The interconnection method for rectennas in an array – as well as their associated dc losses – were also investigated. Based on the theoretical results, a novel interconnection method is proposed here, which has the potential to minimize the dc losses in the grid. A series of experiments were conducted to verify the proposed concepts, which yielded promising results.

Comparing with other dielectric waveguides, NRD (nonradiative dielectric guides) presents advantages of ease of fabrication, low transmission loss, and absence of radiation from bends and discontinuities, making it suitable for realizing compact and high-performance millimeter wave integrated circuits. First, we study the EM theory of NRD to observe the characteristic affected by NRD geometric parameters and introduce multi-mode parameters to analyze mode coupling phenomena in bend and two-layer NRD structures. In order to promote NRD circuit application and transmission performance, we also study an integrated transition between microstrip line and NRD and mode suppressing technique. Finally, the structures mentioned above are all integrated in circuit application.

<p>Using an array synthesis tool based on a modified differential evolution algorithm, it is shown that the position-phase synthesis exhibits improved pattern characteristics compared to both the phase only and position only synthesis of uniform amplitude antenna arrays. The design of an unequally spaced planar reflect-array and an active power combining reflect-array are presented. The unit cell of the active reflect-array consists of an amplifying active reflect-antenna designed using a novel dual polarized microstrip-T coupled patch antenna. Two modelling approaches are proposed for the active reflect-antenna and the modelling methods are compared with the experiments.</p><p>A computationally efficient analysis of an H-slot in the ground plane of a microstripline is carried out using a transmission line model. To improve the accuracy in the resonant region of the H-slot and retaining the computational efficiency, an artificial neural network is combined with an efficient spectral domain method. An efficient analysis tool for a silicon micromachined H-slot coupled antenna is developed by combining the transmission line models of the H-slot and an aperture coupled antenna. The experimental results are compared with the theory showing good agreement.</p><p>The analysis and design of a microwave amplifier based on non-resonant slot matching is carried out. It is seen that the designed slot matched amplifier has decreased layout size, improved gain and noise figure characteristics compared to a stub matched amplifier. An efficient method for the analysis of non-resonant slots is compared with other approaches showing good agreement. This points to the fact that non-resonant slot matched circuits can be designed with the same speed and efficiency as we design the traditional stub based matching circuits.</p><p>To address the problem of bandwidth and performance of reflect-arrays we propose a dielectric resonator antenna with slotline stubs. As a preliminary step we design a dielectric resonator antenna with slotline feed and the experimental results are compared with those of a commercial CAD tool. Design and analysis of 3D interconnects based on non-radiative dielectric waveguides is carried out. At millimeterwave, these interconnects are useful for hybrid and multilayer integration techniques.</p>

Using an array synthesis tool based on a modified differential evolution algorithm, it is shown that the position-phase synthesis exhibits improved pattern characteristics compared to both the phase only and position only synthesis of uniform amplitude antenna arrays. The design of an unequally spaced planar reflect-array and an active power combining reflect-array are presented. The unit cell of the active reflect-array consists of an amplifying active reflect-antenna designed using a novel dual polarized microstrip-T coupled patch antenna. Two modelling approaches are proposed for the active reflect-antenna and the modelling methods are compared with the experiments. A computationally efficient analysis of an H-slot in the ground plane of a microstripline is carried out using a transmission line model. To improve the accuracy in the resonant region of the H-slot and retaining the computational efficiency, an artificial neural network is combined with an efficient spectral domain method. An efficient analysis tool for a silicon micromachined H-slot coupled antenna is developed by combining the transmission line models of the H-slot and an aperture coupled antenna. The experimental results are compared with the theory showing good agreement. The analysis and design of a microwave amplifier based on non-resonant slot matching is carried out. It is seen that the designed slot matched amplifier has decreased layout size, improved gain and noise figure characteristics compared to a stub matched amplifier. An efficient method for the analysis of non-resonant slots is compared with other approaches showing good agreement. This points to the fact that non-resonant slot matched circuits can be designed with the same speed and efficiency as we design the traditional stub based matching circuits. To address the problem of bandwidth and performance of reflect-arrays we propose a dielectric resonator antenna with slotline stubs. As a preliminary step we design a dielectric resonator antenna with slotline feed and the experimental results are compared with those of a commercial CAD tool. Design and analysis of 3D interconnects based on non-radiative dielectric waveguides is carried out. At millimeterwave, these interconnects are useful for hybrid and multilayer integration techniques.