This thesis presents technological advancements in microfluidics. The overall goals of the work are to develop new miniaturized tests for point-of-care diagnostics and robust super-lubricating surfaces for friction reduction. To achieve these goals, novel materials, surfaces and manufacturing methods in microfluidics have been developed. Point-of-care diagnostic tests are portable miniaturized instruments that downscale and automate medical tests previously performed in the central laboratories of hospitals. The instruments are used in the doctor’s office, in the emergency room or at home as self-tests. By bringing the analysis closer to the patient, the likelihood of an accurate diagnosis, or a quick therapy adjustment is increased. Already today, there are point-of-care tests available on the market, for example blood glucose tests, rapid streptococcus tests and pregnancy tests. However, for more advanced diagnostic tests, such as DNA-tests or antibody analysis, integration of microfluidic functions for mass transport and sample preparation is required. The problem is that the polymer materials used in academic development are not always suited for prototyping microfluidic components for sensitive biosensors. Despite the enormous work that has gone into the field, very few technical solutions have been implemented commercially. The first part of the work deals with the development of prototype point of-care tests. The research has focused on two major areas: developing new manufacturing methods to leverage the performance of existing materials and developing a novel polymer material platform, adapted for the extreme demands on surfaces and materials in miniaturized laboratories. The novel manufacturing methods allow complex 3D channel networks and the integration of materials with different surface properties. The novel material platform is based on a novel off-stoichiometry formulation of thiol-enes (OSTE) and has very attractive material and manufacturing properties from a lab-on-chip perspective, such as, chemically stable surfaces, low absorption of small molecules, facile and inexpensive manufacturing process and a biocompatible bonding method. As the OSTE-platform can mirror many of the properties of commercially used polymers, while at the same time having an inexpensive and facile manufacturing method, it has potential to bridge the gap between research and commercial production. Friction in liquid flows is a critical limiting factor in microfluidics, where friction is the dominant force, but also in marine applications where frictional losses are responsible for a large part of the total energy consumption of sea vessels. Microstructured surfaces can drastically reduce the frictional losses by trapping a layer of air bubbles on the surface that can act as an air bearing for the liquid flow. The problem is that these trapped air bubbles collapse at the liquid pressures encountered in practical applications. The last part of the thesis is devoted to the development of novel low fluidfriction surfaces with increased robustness but also with active control of the surface friction. The results show that the novel surfaces can resist up to three times higher liquid pressure than previous designs, while keeping the same friction reducing capacity. The novel designs represent the first step towards practical implementation of micro-structured surfaces for friction reduction. / <p>QC 20110907</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.

ORMOCERR®s are organic-inorganic hybrid polymers. Since their material properties can be tailored precisely during synthesis, they are suitable for a wide range of applications in dielectric and optical microelectronics. This thesis reports on process development of ORMOCERR®s for Sequentially Build-Up (SBU) test vehicles, suitable for both electrical and optical interconnect. Furthermore, this work includes materials characterization, such as refractive index studies (system B59:V32), optical loss measurements (systems B59:V32 and B59:B66), and surface characterization through contact angle measurement and surface energy estimation (systems B59:V32 and B59:B66). Process development for a high-frequency test vehicle was performed applying a newly developed dielectric material of the ORMOCER® class. Dielectric layers in a total thickness of 80 μm were build-up on a common FR4 substrate, applying photolithographic processes and moderate process temperatures of below 433 K. The loss tangent and the permittivity of the material were measured to be 0.024 (loss tangent) and 3.05 (permittivity) over the entire frequency range 10 GHz to 40 GHz. The compatibility of the material to standard processes of the PCB industry was proven. Furthermore, a possibility for cost reduction in high-frequency MCM applications was shown, through the possibility of using low-cost substrates. The concept of a “flexible manufacture approach” for large-area panel optical backplane interconnects was introduced. Here, a 101.6 mm x 101.6 mm photolithographic mask is to be stepped-out over a large-area panel substrate (up to 609.6 mm x 609.6 mm). The goal is to be able to create a large amount of continuous and unique waveguide patterns over the whole area with a small portfolio of masks, thus being able to minimize excess costs. In practice continuous waveguide patterns were created over an area of 204.8 mm x 204.8 mm on a large-are panel (609.6 mm x 609.6 mm), using a large-are mask aligner and a 101.6 mm x 101.6 mm waveguide mask. The optical loss of the waveguides was measured to be 0.6 dB/cm (B59:V32 material system, λ =850 nm). In connection to the large-area panel project a re-evaluation on the optical power budget needed for high bit rate optical interconnects was performed. This work was mainly based on literature surveys of optical waveguide materials, planar optical amplifiers, light coupling structures, and planar light-routing structures. It was shown that optical amplification is necessary at certain places on realistically routed optical backplanes to boost the optical signal. Therefore, the concept of a flip-chip mountable optical amplifier (FOWA) device, based on planar optical waveguide amplifiers and Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers, was developed. The device’s design allows an independent manufacturing to the rest of the board and a mounting at key-positions using standard pick and place technology. Additionally, it was observed that most of the amplifier research is focused on the wavelength of 1310 nm and 1550 nm, whereas optical backplane applications are targeting the 830 nm range. During SBU processing of waveguide structures was discovered a de-wetting phenomenon of B59 resin on a cured B59:B66 and B59:V32 surface, respectively. Good wetting behavior could be achieved by adding small amounts of B66 or V32, respectively, to the B59. Surface tension estimations on various compositions of the systems B59:B66 and B59:V32 could not directly be correlated to the de-wetting phenomenon. Furthermore, the optical loss properties of B59 were only affected to a minor degree by adding B66 or V32. The process route proposed is an efficient alternative to processes including surface activations steps, thus opening possibilities for large-area processing in PCB industry, where surface activation steps, such as plasma activation or silanization, are not available. The process development, materials characterization, and reviews presented provide a basis for further research on processes for high-performance electro/optical backplane interconnects with focus on Large-Area Panel processing.

Fibre Bragg gratings (FBGs) are key components for a vast number of applications in optical communication systems, microwave photonics systems, and optical sensors, etc. The main topic of this thesis is fibre Bragg grating fabrication and applications in direct microwave optical filtering, high speed switching and switchable dual-wavelength fibre lasers. First, a brief overview is given about the photosensitivity in optical fibre, basic FBG fabrication techniques, the popular coupled-mode theory for describing fundamental characteristics of FBGs and the Transfer Matrix method for the numerical simulations of complex-structured FBGs. An advanced FBG fabrication system based on the technique of multiple printing in fibre (with a continuous-wave source) has been used to write complex FBGs incorporating phase shifts, apodization and chirp.      A single double-peaked superimposed grating working in reflection can be employed as a direct optical filter for millimetre-wave signals. Bit error rate measurements confirmed that the filter exhibited nearly on-off behaviour in the passband with a 3-dB bandwidth of 2 GHz for a central frequency of 20 GHz, as expected from the optical spectrum reflection. The presented technique can be used in radio-over-fibre systems or simultaneous up-conversion of ultra-wide band signals and filtering. This thesis focused mostly on the research of two 4-cm long Hamming-apodized gratings written in side-hole fibres with internal electrodes. The temperature dependence measurements showed that the birefringence of the component increased with the temperature. Dynamic measurement has shown nanosecond full off-on and on-off switching. During the electrical pulse action, the grating wavelength was blue-shifted for the x-polarization and red-shifted for the y-polarization due to the mechanical stress. Both peaks subsequently experienced a red-shift due to the relaxation of mechanical stress and the increasing core temperature transferred from the metal in many microseconds. All the wavelength shifts of the two polarizations depend quadratically on the electrical pulse voltage and linearly on the pulse duration. Numerical simulations gave accurate description of the experimental results and were useful to understand the physics behind the birefringence switching. Finally, two switchable dual-wavelength erbium-doped fibre lasers based on FBG feedback were proposed. In one method, an overlapping cavity for the two lasing wavelengths and hybrid gain medium in the fibre laser were introduced. Dual-wavelength switching was achieved by controlling the Raman pump power. The other method employed an injection technique and the dual-wavelength switching was controlled by the power of the injection laser. The switching time was measured to be ~50 ms. Detailed characteristics of the dual-wavelength switching in the two fibre lasers were experimentally studied and corresponding principles were physically explained. / QC 20100922

On this thesis project, the LMS algorithm has been applied for speech noise filteringand different behaviors were tested under different circumstances by using Matlabsimulations and the LPC2378 ARM Processor, which does the task of filtering in realtime. The thesis project is divided into two parts: the theoretical and practical part. In the theoretical part there is a brief description of the different aspects of signalprocessing systems, filter theory, and a general description of the Least-Mean-SquareAdaptive Filter Algorithm. In the practical part of the report a general description of the procedure will besummarized, the results of the tests that were conducted will be analyzed, a generaldiscussion of the problems that were encounter during the simulations will be mention,and suggestion for the problems will be given.

For the Swedish Institute of Space Physics and Uppsala University, we have developed a working radio astronomy telescope capable of receiving the 21cm hydrogen line; the Ångström Small Radio Telescope. The work have resulted in a functional system for positioning the dish, with built in tracking of deep space objects and scanning functions, and signal reception with filtering, mixing and digital sampling. The system is controlled via a computer through an Internet connection.

This thesis work primarily focuses on the applicability of sub-threshold source coupled logic (STSCL) for building digital circuits and systems that run at very low voltage and promise to provide desirable performance with excellent energy savings. Sectors like bio-engineering and smart sensors require the energy consumption to be effectively very low for long battery life. Alongside meeting the ultra-low power specification, the system must also be reliable, robust, and perform well under harsh conditions. In this thesis work, logic gates are designed and analyzed, using STSCL. These gates are further used for implementation of digital subsystems in small-sized smart dust sensors which would operate at very low supply voltages and consume extremely low power. For understanding the performance of STSCL with respect to ultra-low power and energy; a seven-stage ring oscillator, a 4-by-4 array multiplier, a fifth-order FIR filter and finally a fifty-fifth-order FIR filter were designed. The subcircuits and systems have been simulated for different supply voltages, scaling down to 0.2 V, at different temperature values (-20oC and 70oC) in both 45 nm and 65 nm process technologies. The chosen architectures for the FIR filters and array multiplier were conventional and essentially taken from traditional CMOS-based designs. The simulated results are studied, analyzed and compared with same CMOS-based digital circuits. The results show on the advantage of STSCL-based digital systems over CMOS. Simulation results provide an energy consumption of 1.1388 nJ for a fifty-fifth-order FIR filter, at low temperatures (-20oC), using STSCL logic, which is comparatively less than for the corresponding CMOS logic implementation.

This thesis demonstrates the high- level modelling and design of oversampled delta- sigma noise shapers for D/A conversion. It presents an overview and study on digital- to- analog converters (DAC) followed by the noise shapers. It helps us to understand how to design a noise shaper model and algorithmic expressions are presented. The models are verified through high level simulations. The usage of models is to reduce the design time and get a good understanding for fundamental limitations on performance. Instead of time consuming circuit- level simulations, we point out the behavioural- level and algorithmic- level simulations of the noise shaper and the entire system comprising of interpolation filter, noise shaper followed by pulse amplitude modulation and reconstruction filtering. We have used the delta- sigma modulators to reduce the number of bits representing the digital signal. It is found that the requirement on oversampled DACs are tough. It is emphasised that the design of an oversampling converter is a filter designproblem. There is a large number of trade- offs that can be made between the different building blocks in the OSDAC.

This thesis discusses design of narrowband low noise amplifiers for multi¬standard applications. The target of this work is to design a low noise ampli¬fier(LNA) for DCS1800 and Bluetooth standard frequency bands. Various designs for narrowband multi-standard LNAs have been studied and a new design for tunable multi-standard LNA has been presented and designed using accumulation mode MOS varactors. As this design includes on-chip spiral inductors, the design, modelling and layout of on-chip inductors have been discussed briefly. The tool used for this purpose is ASITIC. Also ESD protection techniques for RF circuits and their effect on LNA per¬formance has been discussed. Finally fully differential LNA has been designed in O.35um AMS thick metal CMOS process using Cadence SpectreRF. The design also includes ESD pro¬tection at the input of LNA.

<p>When the Swedish electricity market was re-regulated in 1996 the trading with electricity was exposed to competition and the net service henceforth should be comprised by a monopoly comprised by a regulation. The regulation was based on a review of the costs of the network companies. No attention were paid to if the network was efficient. The following years many of the networks were sold from the municipalities to power companies, to increasing merger prices. The increasing prices in the mergers were followed by increasing prices to the subscribers of the network services. The regulator tried to stop the fast increasing prices, but didn’t succeed. The regulation paradigm couldn’t face the new realities and had to be revised.</p><p>In 1998 the author of this thesis was commissioned by the Swedish Regulator to propose a new regulation model for the Swedish grid companies. Existing models were reviewed but none of them fulfilled the requirements from the regulator; to be self-regulating and give incentives to improved efficiency and distribution reliability. Therefore a new approach was launched. The new approach was to change perspective from a company focus to a consumer focus – a performance-based regulation.</p><p>The solution was to base the regulation of the creation of a standard asset, a Reference Network. From this a new model – the Network Performance Assessment Model (NPAM) – was defined. The Reference Network is defined by four definitions, concerning the elements and topology of a Reference Network, the Subscriber Requirements and the Objective Prerequisites. These definitions grants the transparency of the model.</p><p>The model is sharp and is run into operation in 2004. The final test of the model indicated that the Swedish network companies are overcharging their subscribers with approximately 20%.</p><p>This thesis is an explanation of the model and the definitions, and a review of the thoughts and research which formed the model. Moreover there is a discussion of some topics reported by others in articles about the model. Finally in the conclusion there are topics of simplicity and transparency.</p>