Nonlinear mechanisms in passive microwave devices

Premi extraordinari doctorat curs 2010-2011, àmbit d’Enginyeria de les TICThe telecommunications industry follows a tendency towards smaller devices, higher power and higher frequency, which imply an increase on the complexity of the electronics involved. Moreover, there is a need for extended capabilities like frequency tunable devices, ultra-low losses or high power handling, which make use of advanced materials for these purposes. In addition, increasingly demanding communication standards and regulations push the limits of the acceptable performance degrading indicators. This is the case of nonlinearities, whose effects, like increased Adjacent Channel Power Ratio (ACPR), harmonics, or intermodulation distortion among others, are being included in the performance requirements, as maximum tolerable levels. In this context, proper modeling of the devices at the design stage is of crucial importance in predicting not only the device performance but also the global system indicators and to make sure that the requirements are fulfilled. In accordance with that, this work proposes the necessary steps for circuit models implementation of different passive microwave devices, from the linear and nonlinear measurements to the simulations to validate them. Bulk acoustic wave resonators and transmission lines made of high temperature superconductors, ferroelectrics or regular metals and dielectrics are the subject of this work. Both phenomenological and physical approaches are considered and circuit models are proposed and compared with measurements. The nonlinear observables, being harmonics, intermodulation distortion, and saturation or detuning, are properly related to the material properties that originate them. The obtained models can be used in circuit simulators to predict the performance of these microwave devices under complex modulated signals, or even be used to predict their performance when integrated into more complex systems. A key step to achieve this goal is an accurate characterization of materials and devices, which is faced by making use of advanced measurement techniques. Therefore, considerations on special measurement setups are being made along this thesis.Award-winningPostprint (published version

Solid-state lasers for coherent communication and remote sensing

Semiconductor-diode laser-pumped solid-state lasers have properties that are superior to other lasers for the applications of coherent communication and remote sensing. These properties include efficiency, reliability, stability, and capability to be scaled to higher powers. We have demonstrated that an optical phase-locked loop can be used to lock the frequency of two diode-pumped 1.06 micron Nd:YAG lasers to levels required for coherent communication. Monolithic nonplanar ring oscillators constructed from solid pieces of the laser material provide better than 10 kHz frequency stability over 0.1 sec intervals. We have used active feedback stabilization of the cavity length of these lasers to demonstrate 0.3 Hz frequency stabilization relative to a reference cavity. We have performed experiments and analysis to show that optical parametric oscillators (OPO's) reproduce the frequency stability of the pump laser in outputs that can be tuned to arbitrary wavelengths. Another measurement performed in this program has demonstrated the sub-shot-noise character of correlations of the fluctuations in the twin output of OPO's. Measurements of nonlinear optical coefficients by phase-matched second harmonic generation are helping to resolve inconsistency in these important parameters

Metrological characterization of the pulsed Rb clock with optical detection

We report on the implementation and the metrological characterization of a vapor-cell Rb frequency standard working in pulsed regime. The three main parts that compose the clock, physics package, optics and electronics, are described in detail in the paper. The prototype is designed and optimized to detect the clock transition in the optical domain. Specifically, the reference atomic transition, excited with a Ramsey scheme, is detected by observing the interference pattern on a laser absorption signal. \ The metrological analysis includes the observation and characterization of the clock signal and the measurement of frequency stability and drift. In terms of Allan deviation, the measured frequency stability results as low as $1.7\times 10^{-13} \ \tau^{-1/2}$, $\tau$ being the averaging time, and reaches the value of few units of $10^{-15}$ for $\tau=10^{4}$ s, an unprecedent achievement for a vapor cell clock. We discuss in the paper the physical effects leading to this result with particular care to laser and microwave noises transferred to the clock signal. The frequency drift, probably related to the temperature, stays below $10^{-14}$ per day, and no evidence of flicker floor is observed. \ We also mention some possible improvements that in principle would lead to a clock stability below the $10^{-13}$ level at 1 s and to a drift of few units of $10^{-15}$ per day

Directly diode-pumped, Kerr-lens mode-locked, few-cycle Cr:ZnSe oscillator

Lasers based on Cr$^{2+}$-doped II-VI material, often known as the Ti:Sapphire of the mid-infrared, can directly provide few-cycle pulses with super-octave-spanning spectra, and serve as efficient drivers for generating broadband mid-infrared radiation. It is expected that the wider adoption of this technology benefits from more compact and cost-effective embodiments. Here, we report the first directly diode-pumped, Kerr-lens mode-locked Cr$^{2+}$-doped II-VI oscillator pumped by a single InP diode, providing average powers of over 500 mW and pulse durations of 45 fs - shorter than six optical cycles at 2.4 $\mu$m. These correspond to a sixty-fold increase in peak power compared to the previous diode-pumped record, and are at similar levels with respect to more mature fiber-pumped oscillators. The diode-pumped femtosecond oscillator presented here constitutes a key step towards a more accessible alternative to synchrotron-like infrared radiation, and is expected to accelerate research in laser spectroscopy and ultrafast infrared optics.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

DESIGN OF A GAAS DISTRIBUTED AMPLIFIER WITH LC TRAPS BASED BROADBAND LINEARIZATION

Increasing the linearity of power amplifiers has been an important area of research because its signal integrity influences the performance of the entire transreceiver system and there are strict regulatory requirements on them. Due to the nonlinear behaviour of power amplifiers, third order intermodulation products are generated close to the desired signals and cannot be removed by filters. Increasing linearity will help bring these distortion products closer to the noise floor. However, it is not an easy task to increase linearity without trading off output power. To maintain the same level of output power generated but with higher linearity, many techniques, each with its own pros and cons, have been implemented to linearize an amplifier. Techniques involving feedback are seriously limited in terms of modulation bandwidth whereas methods such as predistortion and feedforward are very difficult to implement. This project seeks to use a simple method of placing terminations directly to the distributed amplifier (DA), making it a device level linearization technique and can be used in addition to the other system level techniques mentioned earlier. To increase linearity over a broad bandwidth of 0.5 to 3.0 GHz, this work proposes using low impedance terminations (LC traps) at the envelope frequency to the input and output of several distributed amplifiers. This research is novel since this is the first time broadband improvement in linearity has been demonstrated using the LC trap method. Two design iterations were completed (first design iteration has four variants to test the output trap while the second design iteration has three variants to test the input trap). The low impedance terminations are implemented using inductor-capacitor networks that are external to the monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC). Design and layout of the DAs were carried out using Agilent’s Advanced Design System (ADS). Results show that placing the traps at the output of the DA does not truly affect the linearity of the device at lower frequencies but provide an improvement of 1.6 dB and 3.4 dB to the third-order output intercept point (OIP3) at 2.5 GHz and 3.0 GHz, respectively. With traps at the input, measurement results at -5 dBm input power, viii 1.375 V base bias (61 mA total collector current) and 10 MHz two tone spacing show a broadband improvement throughout the band (0.5 GHz to 3.0 GHz) of 3.3 dB to 7.4 dB in OIP3. Furthermore, the OIP3 is increased to 19.2 dB above P1dB. Results show that the improvement in OIP3 comes without lowering gain, return loss or P1dB and without causing any stability problems

Studies on microwave antennas : passive intermodulation distortion in antenna structures and design of microstrip antenna elements

Passive intermodulation (PIM) measurements of antennas and the design of dual-polarised microstrip antenna elements are investigated in this thesis. The emphasis is on the development of a passive intermodulation source localisation method and on the studies of the PIM source behaviour under various impedance loading conditions. Passive intermodulation distortion can be harmful in wireless communication systems where the difference between the transmitted and the received power is large such as in GSM base stations. One of the most critical components is the antenna. As the antennas become more complex, the risk of getting excessive PIM distortion increases. Therefore, the antenna designer needs to have knowledge about the PIM phenomenon and proper tools to investigate various antenna structure configurations. The concept of PIM near-field measurement is introduced and the implementation of the equipment for the GSM 900 frequency band is presented. The performance of the scanner is analysed and demonstrated with measurements. The scanner is capable of locating PIM sources in antennas and other open structures down to −110 dBm when the transmitted power is 43 dBm. The limiting factors of the scanner sensitivity are considered and several sensitivity measurements are performed. An analysis of the impedance loading effects on PIM measurements is carried out. The conducted measurements support the theory that the loading impedance effects can be several decibels, when the source or load return loss is less than 20 dB, which is the case with many filters and antennas used in base stations. Dual-polarised antenna elements are needed in various array antenna applications. Two compact antenna element designs with moderate bandwidth and dual polarisation are introduced in the 12 GHz frequency band. The elements use a dual-resonant structure in order to achieve an impedance bandwidth of 16 % (Lretn > 10 dB). The arrangement of the antenna feeds results in an isolation of 35 dB between the ports.reviewe

Helium nanodroplet isolation ro-vibrational spectroscopy: methods and recent results

In this article, recent developments in HElium NanoDroplet Isolation (HENDI) spectroscopy are reviewed, with an emphasis on the infrared region of the spectrum. Topics discussed include experimental details, comparison of radiation sources, symmetry issues of the helium solvation structure, sources of line broadening, changes in spectroscopic constants upon solvation, and applications including formation of novel chemical structures.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables; to be published in the Journal of Chemical Physic

Theory and Experimental Validation of Two Techniques for Compensating VT Nonlinearities

Inductive instrument transformers (ITs) are still the most used voltage and current sensors in power systems. Among the numerous applications that require their use, one of the most important is surely represented by harmonics measurement. In this case, the recent literature shows that, since they suffer from both a filtering behavior due to their dynamics and from nonlinear effects produced by their iron core, they can introduce errors up to some percent. This article wants to deeply investigate, in the very same experimental conditions, about the performance of two digital signal processing techniques, recently introduced for the improvement of harmonics measurements performed through ITs, namely, SINusoidal characterization for DIstortion COMPensation (SINDICOMP) and compensation of harmonic distortion through polynomial modeling in the frequency domain (PHD). These methods have been applied to two different voltage transformers, having different specifications, by using two measurement setups based on different architectures. The impact of the voltage generator employed during the identification on the achieved accuracy is theoretically and experimentally evaluated. Modified versions of SINDICOMP and PHD compensation, which are more robust against nonidealities of the measurement setup, are presented. The performances of the techniques are evaluated by adopting voltage waveforms similar to those that can be encountered during the normal operation in a real distribution grid