<p>The goal of this final year project is to investigate various techniques to up-convert a baseband signal into radio frequency signals, and to investigate the practical problems encountered in an offset phase locked loop design by implementation. </p><p>Phase locked loops are commonly used in radio transmitters and receivers to generate accurate RF signals from a low-frequency reference. This thesis will highlight some of the problems and strengths of various up-conversion schemes, and suggest an offset-PLL architecture free from many of those problems. </p><p>An offset-PLL is often used in mobile communication systems where the required levels of out of band transmission are tough and the use of superheterodyne up-conversion cannot be used due to spectrum or bandwidth requirements. </p><p>However a drawback of an offset-PLL is the high locking time; this can render the offset-PLL useless in TDMA communication systems. This problem among others has been studied theoretically as well as practically on an actual implementation of an offset-PLL for mobile communications. The offset-PLL was designed and manufactured as part of this project.</p>

The goal of this final year project is to investigate various techniques to up-convert a baseband signal into radio frequency signals, and to investigate the practical problems encountered in an offset phase locked loop design by implementation. Phase locked loops are commonly used in radio transmitters and receivers to generate accurate RF signals from a low-frequency reference. This thesis will highlight some of the problems and strengths of various up-conversion schemes, and suggest an offset-PLL architecture free from many of those problems. An offset-PLL is often used in mobile communication systems where the required levels of out of band transmission are tough and the use of superheterodyne up-conversion cannot be used due to spectrum or bandwidth requirements. However a drawback of an offset-PLL is the high locking time; this can render the offset-PLL useless in TDMA communication systems. This problem among others has been studied theoretically as well as practically on an actual implementation of an offset-PLL for mobile communications. The offset-PLL was designed and manufactured as part of this project.

High quality YbxY1-xAG (0≤x≤1) single crystals were grown by using the Czochralski method. The structural properties of YbxY1-xAG (0≤x≤1) single crystals were also investigated using the EXAFS method. Additionally, for the first time, EXAFS results were compared with XRD results. Moreover, without essential lattice structure transformation, YbxY1-xAG crystals can be found due to the varying of doping concentration in XRD measurements. However, EXAFS measurements indicated that the local fine structural variation around the Yb3+ ion depends on the Yb3+ concentration. This work also studies the two-photon luminescence spectra of a Yb3+ doped YAG crystals. To study the spectral performance of Yb:YAG crystal, intense green light (centered at about 544nm) was generated by the crystal upon excitation using a 973nm InGaAs LD pump source. The luminescence spectra were obtained for various Yb concentrations and the emission intensity were plotted versus Yb3+ concentration. The green emission light attributed to Yb3+ two-photon transition.

O trabalho apresentado nessa dissertação concentra-se na área de espectroscopia de íons terras raras com aplicação em biofotônica e foi desenvolvido através da síntese de partículas de fluoreto de bário e gadolínio dopada com o par Yb3+/Tm3+ para estudos conversão ascendente de energia, além da tentativa de crescimento desse material nos poros de uma nanoesfera de sílica. Os materiais a base de fluoretos foram sintetizados através de metodologia hidrotermal com agente complexante citrato de sódio variando a concentração de dopagem do par Yb3+/Tm3+ produzindo três diferentes materiais luminescentes que apresentou conversão ascendente em energia e emissões características do íon túlio a partir da excitação em 980 nm (BaGdF5YbTm nos quais a razão (porcentagem mol/mol) Yb/Tm foi igual à 18/0,5; 20/1 e 10/0,5), além de um quarto material dopado com o íon Eu3+ para estudos estruturais e espectroscópicos acerca da matriz (BaGdF5Eu Gd/Eu 1% mol/mol). Todos os materiais obtidos pela metodologia são cristalinos e apresentaram fase cúbica da solução sólida de BaGdF5. Ademais, dois materiais híbridos, contendo sílica e fluoreto, foram preparados. O primeiro, recobrimento das partículas de fluoreto com sílica (SiO2), apresentou resultados diferentes do que foi previamente reportado por esse grupo de pesquisa, direcionando os estudos ao segundo material, que consistiu no crescimento de partículas de fluoreto dentro dos poros de uma nanoesfera de sílica (SiO2). Neste último, os materiais apresentaram manutenção da morfologia esférica precursora das nanoesferas de sílica além de, para uma amostra sintetiza hidrotermicamente na ausência de citrato de sódio, promover o aparecimento da banda 1D4 5H6 e serão conduzidas para testes biológicos subsequentes como citotoxicidade. / The work presented herein focuses on the area of rare earth spectroscopy with application in biophotonics and it was developed through the synthesis of barium and gadolinium fluoride particles doped with the Yb3+/Tm3+ pair for upconversion studies and the attempt to grow the material in the pores of a silica nanosphere. Biophotonic has been an area of growing interest for the last 30 years, it studies the interaction between light and living matter seeking new technologies in order to characterize, image, diagnose and treat a complexity of dysfunctions in biological material. The search and development of new materials for bioimaging is a need that involves several areas of knowledge. In this work, fluoride-based materials were synthesized by hydrothermal method by varying the doping concentration of Yb3+/Tm3+ pair producing 3 different luminescent materials (BaGdF5YbTm - in which the ratio (mole/mole percentage) Yb/Tm was equal to 18/0,5; 20/1 and 10/0,5). In addition, a fourth material doped with Eu3+ was synthetized for structural and spectroscopic studies on the matrix (BaGdF5Eu - Gd / Eu 1 mol% mol). All materials obtained by this method were crystalline and presented cubic phase of BaGdF5 solid solution. Moreover, two multifunctional materials were prepared. The first was obtained by coating the fluoride particles with silica (SiO2) presented different results than previously reported by this research group, directing the studies to the second material, which consisted of the growth of fluoride particles inside the pores of a nanosphere of silica (SiO 2). In the latter, the materials showed maintenance of the precursor spherical morphology of silica nanospheres and, for a hydrothermally synthesized sample in the absence of sodium citrate, promote the appearance of the 1D4 5H6 band and will be conducted for subsequent biological tests as cytotoxicity.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第22452号 / 工博第4713号 / 新制||工||1736(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院工学研究科材料化学専攻 / (主査)教授 田中 勝久, 教授 三浦 清貴, 教授 藤田 晃司 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DGAM

Up-conversion (UC) in rare-earth co-doped fluorides to convert diode laser light in the near infrared to red, green and blue visible light is applied to make possible high performance emissive displays. The infrared-to-visible UC in the materials we study is a sequential form of non-linear two photon absorption in which a strong absorbing constituent absorbs two low energy photons and transfers this energy to another constituent which emits visible light. Some of the UC emitters' most appealing characteristics for displays are: a wide color gamut with very saturated colors, very high brightness operation without damage to the emitters, long lifetimes and efficiencies comparable to those of existing technologies. Other advantages include simplicity of fabrication, versatility of operating modes, and the potential for greatly reduced display weight and depth. Thanks to recent advances in material science and diode laser technology at the excitation wavelength, UC selected materials can be very efficient visible emitters. However, optimal UC efficiencies strongly depend on chosing proper operating conditions. In this thesis, we studied the conditions required for optimization. We demonstrated that high efficiency UC depends on high pump irradiance, low temperature and low scattering. With this understanding we can predict how to optimally use UC emitters in a wide range of applications. In particular, we showed how our very efficient UC emitters can be applied to make full color displays and very efficient white light sources.

There are many different techniques to display 3D information. However, not many of them are able to provide sufficient depth cues to the observers to sense or feel the images as real three-dimensional objects. Volumetric three-dimensional displays generate images within a real 3D space, so they provide most of the depth cues automatically. This thesis discusses the basic notions required to understand three-dimensional displays. Also discussed are different techniques used to display 3D information and their advantages and disadvantages as well as their current limitations. Several rare-earth doped fluoride crystals that are excited to emit visible light by sequential two photon absorption have been investigated as display medium candidates for static volumetric three dimensional displays. A scalable display medium is suggested to enable large 3D displays. This medium is a dispersion of particles of the rare earth doped fluoride crystals in a refractive index-matched polymer matrix. Detailed experiments are described to prepare such a scalable display medium using a wide variety of polymers. The scattering problem in such a medium was greatly reduced by index-matching the polymer to the crystalline particles. An index-matching condition that optimizes the performance was identified and demonstrated. A potential near-future solution is demonstrated and improvements are suggested.

<p>In this thesis, we study three different image interpolation applications in high definition (HD) video processing: video de-interlacing, frame rate up-conversion, and view interpolation. We propose novel methods for these applications which are based on the concept of Nonlocal-Means (NL-Means).</p> <p>In the first part of this thesis, we introduce a new de-interlacing method which uses NL-Means algorithm. In this method, every interpolated pixel is set to a weighted average of its neighboring pixels in the current, previous, and the next frames. Weights of the pixels used in this filtering are calculated according to the radiometric distance between the surrounding areas of the pixel being interpolated and the neighboring pixels. One of the main challenges of the NL-Means is finding a suitable size for the neighborhoods (similarity window) that we want to find radiometric distance for them. We address this problem by using a steering kernel in our distance function to adapt the effective size of similarity window to the local information of the image. In order to calculate the weights of the filter, we need to have an estimate of the progressive frames. Therefore, we introduce a low computational initial de-interlacing method. This method interpolates the missing pixel along a direction based on two criteria of having minimum variation and being used by the above or below pixels. This method preserves the edge structures and yields superior visual quality compared to the simple edge-based line-averaging and many other simple iv de-interlacing methods.</p> <p>The second part of this thesis is devoted to the frame rate up-conversion application. Our frame rate up-conversion method is based on two main steps: NL-Means and foreground /background segmentation. In this method, for every pixel being interpolated first we check whether it belongs to the background or foreground. If the pixel belongs to the background and the values of the next and previous frames’ pixels are the same, we simply set the pixel intensity to the intensity of its location in the previous or next frame. If the pixel belongs to the foreground, we use NL-Means based interpolation for it. We adjust the equations of the NL-means for frame rate up-conversion so that we do not need to have the neighborhoods of the intermediate for calculating the weights of the filter. The comparison of our method with other existing methods shows the better performance of our method.</p> <p>In the third part of this thesis, we introduce a novel view interpolation method without using disparity estimation. In this method, we let every pixel in the intermediate view be the output of the NL-means using the pixels in the reference views. The experimental results demonstrate the better quality of our results compared with other algorithms which use disparity estimation.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

This thesis investigates the impact of doping on the optical and structural characteristics of cerium oxide (ceria) nanoparticles synthesized using chemical precipitation. The dopants selected are samarium and neodymium, which have positive association energy with oxygen vacancies in the ceria host, and negative association lanthanides, holmium and erbium, as well as two metal dopants, aluminum and iron. Characteristics measured are absorption and fluorescence spectra and the diameter and lattice parameter of ceria. Analysis of the characteristics indicates qualitatively that the dopant controls the O-vacancy concentration and the ratio of the two cerium ionization states: Ce+3 and Ce+4. A novel conclusion is proposed that the negative association lanthanide dopants can act as O-vacancies scavengers in ceria while the O-vacancy concentration increases in ceria doped with positive association lanthanide elements. Doped ceria nanoparticles are evaluated in two applications: dissolved oxygen (DO) sensing and up-conversion. In the first application, ceria doped with either Sm or Nd and ceria doped with aluminum have a strong correlation between the fluorescence quenching with the DO concentration in the aqueous solution in which the ceria nanoparticles are suspended. Stern-Volmer constants (KSV) of doped ceria are found to strongly depend upon the O-vacancy concentration and are larger than some of the fluorescent molecular probes currently used to measure DO. The KSV measured between 25-50oC is found to be significantly less temperature dependent as compared to the constants of commercially-available DO molecular probes. In the second application, up-conversion, ceria nanoparticles doped with erbium and an additional lanthanide, either Sm or Nd, are exposed to IR radiation at 780 nm. Visible emission is only observed after the nanoparticles are calcinated at high temperature, greatly diminishing the concentration of O-vacancies. It is concluded that O-vacancies do not play a dominant role in up-conversion, unlike that drawn for down-conversion, where the fluorescence intensity is strongly correlated with the O-vacancy concentration. Correlations between annealing temperatures, dopant, and dopant concentrations with the power dependence of up-conversion on the pump and the origin of the intensities of the visible emission are presented. These studies show the promise of doped ceria nanoparticles. / Ph. D.

Le projet s’inscrit dans le développement de sources lasers RGB miniaturisées pour l’affichage et la vidéoprojection, la conversion de fréquence dans les cellules solaires.Les verres fluorés ZLAG (ZrF4-LaF3-AlF3-GaF3) codopés terres rares ont été considérés. Ce verre possède une faible énergie de phonon, une forte solubilité des terres rares et peut être fabriqué en couche mince par la technique PVD. Il est de plus le précurseur de vitrocéramiques transparentes. On a observé dans les verres massifs et les guides d’onde des émissions bleue, orange et rouge avec un codopage Pr3+-Yb3+, bleue et rouge avec un co-dopage Tm3+-Yb3+. L’émission RGB dans les verres tri-dopés Tm3+-Er3+-Yb3+ semble prometteuse. Par ailleurs, la vitro-céramisation a permis d’augmenter de plus de 30% les sections efficaces d’absorption des ions Pr3+ et Yb3+.Une efficacité de transfert de 92% a été obtenue dans les verres co-dopés 0,5Pr3+-10Yb3+ pour le processus de conversion d’un photon bleu en deux photons IR. / The project joins in the development of miniaturized laser sources RGB for display and videoprojection, frequency conversion in solar cells.Fluoride glasses ZLAG ( ZrF4-LaF3-AlF3-GaF3) co-doped with rare earths were studied. This glass has a low phonon energy, a strong solubility of the rare earth ions and can be fabricated as thin films by PVD. It is also the precursor of transparent glass-ceramics. Similar emissions in both co-doped bulk and waveguides have been observed ; blue, orange, red emission for Pr3+-Yb3+ and blue, red emission for Tm3+-Yb3+. The RGB emission in bulk Tm3+-Er3+-Yb3+ tri-doped glass seems promising. Furthermore, the absorption cross section of Pr3+ and Yb3+ ions has been increased by 30% with the ceraming process.An energy transfer efficiency (ETE) of 92% has been obtained for co-doped glass with 0,5Pr3+-10Yb3+ for the conversion process of a blue photon into two infrared one.