The versatility of surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices stems from the accessibility of the propagation path to modification and detection. This has led to the integration of SAWs in a variety of novel fields, including quantum information processing. The development of technologically competitive devices requires the use of gigahertz frequency SAWs. This thesis develops fabrication processes for high frequency interdigital transducers on gallium arsenide. Optically lithography was used to create linear and stepped transducers, with a minimum feature size of 2 um, that were driven at their fifth harmonic. The highest frequency achieved was 1435 MHz, but the power absorbed was less than 3% and insertion losses were greater than -80 dB. Further improvements in the design and fabrication are required if optically fabricated transducers are to be an alternative to transducers with narrower finger widths. Electron-beam lithography techniques were developed and used to create transducers with finger widths of 500 and 400 nm, with fundamental resonance frequencies of 1387 and 1744 MHz, respectively. The power absorbed was 3 to 6% with insertion losses greater than -45 dB. The performance characteristics can be improved by the removal of residual resist on the surface of the transducer. An indispensable tool for the characterization of one-port transducers is an all optical probe to measure the displacement field of a SAW. This work details the design and construction of a scanning Sagnac interferometer, that is capable of measuring the outward displacement of a surface. The spatial resolution of the interferometer was 2.4 +/- 0.2 um and the displacement sensitivity was determined to be 4 +/- 1 pm. The instrument was used to map the SAW displacement field from a 358 MHz transducer, with results showing the resonant cavity behaviour of the fingers due to Bragg reflections. It also allowed for the direct detection of the SAW amplitude as a function of the driving frequency of the transducer. The results showed good agreement with the related S21 scattering parameter. Lastly, the interferometer was used to image the attenuated propagation of SAWs through a phononic crystal. Results showed good agreement with theoretical simulations. / Thesis (Master, Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy) -- Queen's University, 2009-12-08 12:28:35.962

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The objective of this research is to implement monolithic analog phase shifters based on barium strontium titanate (BST) coated sapphire substrates for IEEE 802.11b wireless local area network (WLAN) applications. It has been known that several BST thin film properties such as high relative permittivity, electric field dependence, fast polarization response, relatively low loss, and high breakdown field, allow for miniaturization and high performance of analog phase shifters. Before attempting to implement BST phase shifters, coplanar waveguides (CPWs) and interdigital capacitors (IDCs) based on various BST compositions and thicknesses have been developed and characterized to capitalize on the electrical properties of BST thin films. Based on the characteristics of BST thin films, two design topologies have been studied to implement phase shifters. The first topology is a reflection-type structure. The reflection-type phase shifter composed of a 3-dB coupler and two identical reflective terminations has provided a large phase shift with a relatively low insertion loss. The second topology is an all-pass network structure. The all-pass network phase shifter consists of only lumped elements so that one can shrink in size of devices. The total chip area of the all-pass network phase shifter is only 2.6 mm * 2.2 mm with a loss figure-of-merit (FOM) of more than 69 deg/dB at 2.4 GHz. This is the smallest size and the best performance obtained to date for BST phase shifters in the 2.4 GHz band and comparable or even better than the state of the GaAs MMIC phase shifters. The nonlinear response of the all-pass network phase shifter also was investigated with two-tone intermodulation distortion (IMD) measurement. Furthermore, the all-pass network phase shifter was studied to ascertain a design to ensure minimum performance variation over a range of temperature and to determine which BST composition performed best in the face of temperature variations. Compact beamforming networks (BFNs) for WLAN systems using client-based smart antennas have been demonstrated to validate the feasibility of BST technology for WLAN applications. The two-element BFNs have been shown to increase throughput and network capacity by rejecting interference.

Aluminum nitride (AlN) thin films were deposited on SiO2/Si substrates using the reactive RF magnetron sputtering in this thesis. By means of the analysis of XRD, SEM, TEM and AFM, the optimal deposition conditions of highly C-axis oriented AlN films were obtained with RF power of 190W, sputtering pressure of 3mTorr, nitrogen concentration (N2/N2+Ar) of 30%, and substrate temperature of 400¢J. The characteristics of films annealed at temperature range from 600¢J to 1150¢J with N2 flow for 2 hours has been studied. Experimental results reveal that the films retain the high quality up to 800¢J. But when the temperature above 1000¢J, AlN films will be oxided to AlO:N. In addition, the interdigital transducers (IDTs) were fabricated on the films annealed at 800¢J for 2 hours to study the characteristics of SAW devices. The results show that the central frequency, insertion loss and phase velocity of SAW were 182.25 MHz, -12.95 dB and 5824 m/sec, respectively. At the same time, we try to match the impedence of devices and improve the frequency response by using a simulation program. After the impedence was matched, the insertion are not strongly improved but the frequency response and closed-in sidelobe rejection exhibit better. The effects of temperature on the SAW devices show that the central frequency almost does not shift when the temperature increases. But the insertion loss slightly increases with the temperature increased, the variation is about -0.02 dB/¢J.

This thesis includes the study of hybrid microwave integrated circuits (HMIC), miniaturization techniques applied on HMICs and its application on a frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) range sensor transceiver. In the scope of study, hybrid and monolithic microwave integrated circuits (HMIC and MMIC) are introduced, advantages and disadvantages of these two types are discussed. Large size of HMICs is the main disadvantage especially for military and civil applications requiring miniature volumes. This thesis is mainly devoted on miniaturization work of HMICs in order to cope with this problem. In this scope, miniaturization techniques of some HMICs such as 3 dB hybrid couplers and stubs are examined and analyzed. Their simulation and measurement results cohere with original circuit results. Nevertheless, considerable size reduction up to 80% is achieved. Moreover, planar interdigital capacitors (IDC), spiral inductors (SI) and their equivalent circuit models are introduced. Design technique is discussed with illustrative electromagnetic (EM) simulations. Furthermore, FMCW radar is introduced with its basic operation principles, brief history and usage areas. In addition, FMCW range sensor transceiver is designed with its sub&amp / #8208 / parts / power amplifier, low noise amplifier (LNA), coupler and front end. Multi technology based on chip transistors, interdigital capacitors, spiral inductors and hybrid couplers with wire&amp / #8208 / bond connections is used in the design. As the result of using hybrid miniaturized components small layout size is achieved for the transceiver system with its all components.

The conventional medical immunoassays (ELISA/CLIA/FPIA) are not only costly (>10,000 USD), large in size (>10,000 cm3), but also require a vast number of sampling (25 £gL/well ¡Ñ 12 well) and long detection time (1~2.5 hr). To develop a biomedical microsensor for the application of portable detecting microsystem, this thesis proposes a flexural plate wave (FPW) microsensor with a novel reflection grating electrode (RGE) microstructure. Comparing to the conventional acoustic microsensors, the FPW based device has higher mass sensitivity, lower operation frequency but higher noise level. To overcome this disadvantages, this study added the RGE microstructure into the design of FPW sensor and investigated its influences on the reduction of insertion loss and noise level. By using the surface and bulk micromachining technologies, this thesis designed and fabricated FPW-based mass-sensing device with a small volume of 0.189 cm3 and a novel RGE microstructure. The main processing steps adopted in this research include six photolithoghaphies and nine thin-film depositions. In this work, a high figure-of-merit C-axial orientation ZnO piezoelectric thin-film was deposited by a commercial magnetic radio-frequency (RF) sputter system. On the other hand, the gold/chrome interdigital transducer (IDT) and RGE aluminum electrode were deposited utilizing a commercial E-beam evaporator system. For the optimization of design specifications of the FPW devices, the space of input and output IDTs, pair number of IDT, length of delay line gap and with/without RGE design were varied and investigated. Under the optimized IDT specification, the FPW microstructure presents lower central frequency (2¡ã4 MHz), insertion loss (-11 dB) and noise level (<-30 dB) than that of the FPW based microsensor without RGE microstructure. In addition, as the sampling volume of the testing DI water is equal to 1 £gL, a high mass sensitivity (-48.3 cm2/g) and short responding time (5 min) of the FPW microsensor with RGE design can be achieved in this work. The excellent characteristics mentioned above demonstrated the implemented FPW microsensor is very suitable for the applications of portable biomedical detecting microsystems.

The miniaturization of chemical and biological sensors has received considerable attention in recent years for medical diagnostics, environmental monitoring, pharmaceutical screening, military applications, etc. One interesting area of development in microfluidic system is detecting dielectric properties of MUT (Material Under Test) using IDC (Interdigital Capacitor) electrodes. The IDC chemical sensor has been investigated by many researchers because they are cheap to manufacture and can be easily integrated with other sensing components and signal processing electronics. This dissertation presents the design, fabrication, and testing of an IDC (interdigital capacitor) electrode sensor for a fluid property monitoring component that can be integrated into a microfluidic system. One practical point of this research is the analytical evaluation of the interdigital electrode capacitance for the detection of conductivity and permittivity of the aqueous solutions, which is not apparently analyzed in other chemical sensor applications. In addition, a new noble methodology of remotely accessing the IDC sensor by wireless inductive coupling similar to EAS (Electronic Article Surveillance) tags is presented. / text

Alternative diesel fuels have been the subject of extensive investigation. Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) based Biodiesel manufactured from vegetable oils or animal fats is an excellent candidate to replace common diesel fuel being renewable, non-toxic and often giving rise to reduced exhaust gas emissions. The transesterification process has been commonly and widely used to produce biodiesel from vegetable oil or animal fat. Vegetable oils or animal fats generally have viscosities higher than standard diesel oil. This means that it is necessary to reduce the viscosity by means of reacting vegetable oil with alcohol in the presence of a suitable catalyst. The target product for this reaction is methyl ester, with glycerol and potentially soap produced as by products with the process of transesterification. Methylester (Biodiesel) is produced by converting triglycerides to alkylesters. A batch transesterification process has two significant mechanisms, and exhibits a mass transfer controlled region that precedes a second order kinetically controlled region. In order to control the conversion process it is useful to employ process monitoring. In particular monitoring of the mass transfer processes that limits the initial reaction rates could prove to be beneficial in allowing for process optimization and control. This thesis proposes the use of a new method of biodiesel process monitoring using low frequency (15kHz) impedance sensing which is able to provide information regarding the progress of mass transfer and chemical reaction during biodiesel production. An interdigitated (ID) sensor has been used to monitoring the biodiesel process The ID sensor is of simple construction and consists of two sets of interleaved electrodes (fingers). The two sets of electrodes are separated by a gap and when an AC excitation voltage is applied across the interleaved electrodes an oscillating electric field is developed. The response of the fluid surrounding the sensor to the applied excitation was then used to determine progress of the chemical reaction by evaluating the real and complex impedance. A significant and unambiguous change in the components of impedance has been shown to occur during mixing (mass transfer) and transesterification. The impedance measurements gained during transesterification were then used for the development of a system model. A systematic approach was used to select mathematical models and system identification techniques were evaluated. The system identification investigation used real process measurement data in conjunction with the Matlab system identification toolbox.

M.Ing. / The aim of Spoornet is to provide a minimise predictable service. In order to provide a predictable service, it is necessary to move trains safely and effectively from the place of departure to their destination. The keywords here are safely and effectively. Although support functions such as infrastructure and train control procedures are vital in moving the train, the train or rolling stock as it is generally known, warrants some attention. Defects on the rolling stock are very costly to Spoornet. This is mainly due to the fact that a defect on the rolling stock that goes undetected can cause damage to the rolling stock and the infrastructure. This damage can eventually lead to derailments. Considering that a derailment can cost Spoornet millions of rand and cause delays to the services, it is only logical to spend time preventing derailments. It is for this reason that a workgroup was formed to investigate and solve the problem of defects causing derailments and delays by developing an early warning system. The need for an integrated train condition monitoring system became apparent when considering an early warning system. The objectives of the integrated train condition monitoring system are to provide train condition information to different users, and alarms on detection of emergency or dangerous conditions. Various train defects that may cause damage or derailments were identified. One of them being a flat wheel on a rail vehicle. A flat wheel is characterised by the flattening of the wheel on one or more positions on its circumference, so that the wheel does not have an even and completely round profile. Flat wheels are mostly caused by the wheels of a vehicle becoming locked during braking, and sliding along the rail track. The friction created by this action grinds a flat spot on the wheel. The flat wheel leads to a decline in the riding quality of the rolling stock and a rise in the levels of vibration and noise is evident. But more importantly, the flat spot causes the wheel to roll unevenly, creating impacts on the rail on some points. It is these impacts that can cause damage to the rail and the rolling stock. Depending on the length of the flat spot, the vehicle type and speed, the stresses may be sufficient to cause final failure of the rail or initiate fatigue cracks in the rail. Severe flat wheels are a safety hazard and can in some cases, cause derailments and consequent delays to trains. Smaller flat spots contribute to track deterioration and so increase maintenance costs by damaging the rails, sleepers and ballast. Flat wheels can thus be very costly to Spoornet and its public image. In addition to safety and economic considerations, wheel flats reduce the comfort levels in the passenger coaches and the noises they make is annoying. In an attempt to restrict the damage caused by flat wheels, most railway administrations place a limit on the length of the flats that may stay in service. But to effectively find a flat wheel on rolling stock is currently a very expensive exercise. Flat wheels can be detected by an audible knocking sound when standing next to the rail. This sound is impossible for the driver to hear and therefore goes undetected. Normally flat wheels are detected by random inspection of the rolling stock or when they are brought in for a routine service. The service cycle on rolling stock can be up to 24 months in Spoornet. Considering that a flat wheel has an impact roughly every 3m, a serious flat generates roughly 160 000 impacts on a single trip on the coal heavy haul export line. It is therefore clear that a flat wheel can cause a considerable amount of damage between service cycles. The severity of the problem is however not accurately defined in Spoornet, because up to a few months ago there was no detection system in use to determine the distribution of flat wheels. The research department of the Deutsche Bundesbahn however considers rail fractures due to the flat wheels to be a serious problem with a significant annual replacement cost. There are thus sound safety and economic reasons for wishing to understand the mechanisms of flat wheels and to develop an early warning system using an automatic detector.

The present work deals with the design and manufacturing of 3D structures in LTCC (Low Temperatue Cofired Ceramics) technology. To use this technology LTCC workplaces have been designed and technological processes for high quality reproducible production were suggested. Technological possibilities of low temperature co-fired ceramics were demonstrated in the design and manufacturing of pressure sensors, electrode systems for ozone generators, planar circuit elements (coils and transformers) and in the design a special package for middle-power terahertz modulator. Design of selected parts of respective devices was proved by simulations in COMSOL Multiphysics. The work provides new insights into the structure of power integrated circuits sleeves and structure of electrode systems for different types of electrical discharges. Results of this work can contribute significantly in the application of planar circuit elements, in the development of different types of sensors, in the design of atypical types of packaging or in the design of electrode systems for capacitive coupled electrical discharges.