A low noise signal acquisition protocol is required for inner ear evoked response recordings. In this work, a parallel amplifier approach was investigated to implement a bio-signal amplifier with low voltage noise (<5nV/√Hz), and low current noise (~2fA/√Hz). A modified ear electrode was investigated to reduce biological interference and thermal noise due to high impedance electrodes. A physical model to simulate electrical activity of the inner ear was developed to evaluate the accuracy of detecting vestibular field potentials (FPs) in the presence of various noise sources. Muscle activity and noise generated from the recording apparatus were found to be the dominating sources, degrading performance of FP extraction. Contributions from this work include: the design, implementation, and validation of a bio-signal amplifier with <5nV/√Hz voltage noise, and a low impedance electrode development and placement protocol. As a result, a signal-to-noise-ratio improvement of ~11dB (compared to the current protocol) was achieved.

A low noise signal acquisition protocol is required for inner ear evoked response recordings. In this work, a parallel amplifier approach was investigated to implement a bio-signal amplifier with low voltage noise (<5nV/√Hz), and low current noise (~2fA/√Hz). A modified ear electrode was investigated to reduce biological interference and thermal noise due to high impedance electrodes. A physical model to simulate electrical activity of the inner ear was developed to evaluate the accuracy of detecting vestibular field potentials (FPs) in the presence of various noise sources. Muscle activity and noise generated from the recording apparatus were found to be the dominating sources, degrading performance of FP extraction. Contributions from this work include: the design, implementation, and validation of a bio-signal amplifier with <5nV/√Hz voltage noise, and a low impedance electrode development and placement protocol. As a result, a signal-to-noise-ratio improvement of ~11dB (compared to the current protocol) was achieved.

abstract: Modern day deep sub-micron SOC architectures often demand very low supply noise levels. As supply voltage decreases with decreasing deep sub-micron gate length, noise on the power supply starts playing a dominant role in noise-sensitive analog blocks, especially high precision ADC, PLL, and RF SOC's. Most handheld and portable applications and highly sensitive medical instrumentation circuits tend to use low noise regulators as on-chip or on board power supply. Nonlinearities associated with LNA's, mixers and oscillators up-convert low frequency noise with the signal band. Specifically, synthesizer and TCXO phase noise, LNA and mixer noise figure, and adjacent channel power ratios of the PA are heavily influenced by the supply noise and ripple. This poses a stringent requirement on a very low noise power supply with high accuracy and fast transient response. Low Dropout (LDO) regulators are preferred over switching regulators for these applications due to their attractive low noise and low ripple features. LDO's shield sensitive blocks from high frequency fluctuations on the power supply while providing high accuracy, fast response supply regulation. This research focuses on developing innovative techniques to reduce the noise of any generic wideband LDO, stable with or without load capacitor. The proposed techniques include Switched RC Filtering to reduce the Bandgap Reference noise, Current Mode Chopping to reduce the Error Amplifier noise & MOS-R based RC filter to reduce the noise due to bias current. The residual chopping ripple was reduced using a Switched Capacitor notch filter. Using these techniques, the integrated noise of a wideband LDO was brought down to 15µV in the integration band of 10Hz to 100kHz. These techniques can be integrated into any generic LDO without any significant area overhead. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Electrical Engineering 2014

Noise in electronic circuits can sometimes cause problems. It is especially problematic in for example high sensitive sensors and high end audio and video equipment. In audio and video equipment the noise will make its way into the sound and picture reducing the overall quality. Sensors that are constructed to sense extremely small changes can only pick up changes larger than the noise floor of the circuit. By lowering the noise, sensors can achieve higher accuracy.  This thesis presents an ultra low noise solution of the biasing circuitry to the bolometer used in one of FLIR Systems high end cameras. The bolometer uses different adjustable direct current voltage sources and is extremely sensitive to noise. The purpose is to improve the picture quality and the thermal measurement resolution. A prototype circuit was constructed and in the end of the thesis a final circuit with successful result will be presented.

In this thesis, I have developed a range of theoretical and numerical techniques for modelling the behaviour of partially coherent optical systems and multi-mode detectors. The numerical simulations were carried out for the ultra-low-noise Transition Edge Sensors (TESs) being proposed for use on the SAFARI instrument on the cooled aperture infrared space telescope SPICA (34 - 210 μm). The optical behaviour of the SAFARI system is described in terms of the optical modes of the telescope, as distinct from the optical modes of the detector. The performance of the TESs were assessed in terms of signal power, background power and photon noise. To establish a method for precisely characterising and calibrating ultra-low-noise TESs, a cryogenic test system was designed and engineered to measure the optical efficiencies of the SAFARI TESs. The multi-mode, partially coherent illumination conditions of the measurement system were engineered to be precisely the same as those of the telescope. A major difference between the test system and the telescope’s optics is that the telescope will have focusing elements, but the test system was designed to avoid focusing elements in order to keep the optical path as clean as possible. The theoretical formalism and numerical models were adapted accordingly to address this difference. The numerical simulations show that the test system could provide near identical optical performance as that of the telescope system even though the focusing elements were absent. I also performed experimental measurements to investigate the optical efficiencies of the multi-mode TESs. The detectors worked exceedingly well in all respects with satisfactory optical efficiencies. In addition, it has been shown that the optical model provides a good description of the optical behaviour of the test system and detectors. Further modal analysis was developed to study losses in the multi-mode horns. The optical behaviour of the waveguide-mounted thin absorbing films in the far-infrared was modelled using a mode-matching method.

This masters thesis deals with low noise amplifier design for frequency range 1 GHz - 3 GHz. There is a short theoretical introduction in the first part of the thesis. There are described parameters and properties of transistors and general two-ports. Description of the noise characteristics two-ports follows. The next capture contains design of two-stage amplifiers. One of them is with a microstrip filter between stages and the second one is with combline filter on input of the amplifier. The amplifiers and the microstrip filter were designed in program ANSOFT Designer. The design of combline filter was realised in program CST Microwave Studio. Both amplifiers ware made and their properties ware compared with simulations.

This research investigates the realization of parametric amplification in superconducting circuits and structures where nonlinearity is provided by Josephson junction (JJ) elements. We aim to develop a systematic analysis over JJ-based devices toward design of novel traveling-wave Josephson parametric amplifiers (TW-JPA). Chapters of this thesis fall into three categories: lumped JPA, superconducting periodic structures and discrete Josephson transmission lines (DJTL). The unbiased Josephson junction (JJ) is a nonlinear element suitable for parametric amplification through a four-photon process. Two circuit topologies are introduced to capture the unique property of the JJ in order to efficiently mix signal, pump and idler signals for the purpose of signal amplification. Closed-form expressions are derived for gain characteristics, bandwidth determination, noise properties and impedance for this kind of parametric power amplifier. The concept of negative resistance in the gain formulation is observed. A design process is also introduced to find the regimes of operation for gain achievement. Two regimes of operation, oscillation and amplification, are highlighted and distinguished in the result section. Optimization of the circuits to enhance the bandwidth is also carried out. Moving toward TW-JPA, the second part is devoted to modelling the linear wave propagation in a periodic superconducting structure. We derive closed-form equations for dispersion and s-parameters of infinite and finite periodic structures, respectively. Band gap formation is highlighted and its potential applications in the design of passive filters and resonators are discussed. The superconducting structures are fabricated using YBCO and measured, illustrating a good correlation with the numerical results. A novel superconducting Transmission Line (TL), which is periodically loaded by Josephson junctions (JJ) and assisted by open stubs, is proposed as a platform to realize a traveling-wave parametric device. Using the TL model, this structure is modeled by a system of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDE) with a driving source and mixed-boundary conditions at the input and output terminals, respectively. This model successfully emulates parametric and nonlinear microwave propagation when long-wave approximation is applicable. The influence of dispersion to sustain three non-degenerate phased-locked waves through the TL is highlighted. A rigorous and robust Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) solver based on the explicit Lax-Wendroff and implicit Crank-Nicolson schemes has been developed to investigate the device responses under various excitations. Linearization of the wave equation, under small-amplitude assumption, dispersion and impedance analysis is performed to explore more aspects of the device for the purpose of efficient design of a traveling-wave parametric amplifier. Knowing all microwave characteristics and identifying different regimes of operation, which include impedance properties, cut-off propagation, dispersive behaviour and shock-wave formation, we exploit perturbation theory accompanied by the method of multiple scale to derive the three nonlinear coupled amplitude equations to describe the parametric interaction. A graphical technique is suggested to find three waves on the dispersion diagram satisfying the phase-matching conditions. Both cases of perfect phase-matching and slight mismatching are addressed in this work. The incorporation of two numerical techniques, spectral method in space and multistep Adams-Bashforth in time domain, is employed to monitor the unilateral gain, superior stability and bandwidth of this structure. Two types of functionality, mixing and amplification, with their requirements are described. These properties make this structure desirable for applications ranging from superconducting optoelectronics to dispersive readout of superconducting qubits where high sensitivity and ultra-low noise operation is required.