Highly Reliable and Repeatable Soldering Technique for Assembling Empty Substrate Integrated Waveguide Devices

[EN] In this paper, a novel mymargin soldering technique that improves the fabrication process of empty substrate integrated waveguide (ESIW) devices is presented. Up until now, in order to fabricate an ESIW device, the tin solder paste was distributed, before assembling, on the contact surface between layers, in order to ensure a good electrical contact. This process has a low degree of repeatability (random soldering thickness and distribution of tin) and reliability (a significant number of nonworking prototypes due to tin overflow). In this paper, we propose the mechanization of a set of plated vias just next to the metalized walls of the ESIW in the central layer. Next, in the top and bottom covers that close this ESIW, additional plated vias are drilled in the same position so that, when the device is assembled (using screws or rivets), metalized holes can be seen passing through the whole structure from top to bottom. These holes are then used as soldering vias that can guide the tin paste straight to the point where it is needed. When the paste is dried, soldered vias ensure a very good electrical contact between layers. In addition, the fluid tin fills any small gap that appears between layers, thus providing a very good electrical contact and mechanical union. This novel soldering technique has been validated with experimental results. Several prototypes of filters centered at 13 and 35 GHz have been fabricated, proving the repeatability and reliability of the proposed soldering technique.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economiy Competitividad, Spanish Government, under Project TEC2016-75934-C4-3-R and Project TEC2016-75934-C4-1-R.Martinez, JA.; Belenguer, A.; Esteban González, H. (2019). Highly Reliable and Repeatable Soldering Technique for Assembling Empty Substrate Integrated Waveguide Devices. IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology (Online). 9(11):2276-2281. https://doi.org/10.1109/TCPMT.2019.2915688S2276228191

Compact Folded Bandpass Filter in Empty Substrate Integrated Coaxial Line at S-Band

© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permissíon from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertisíng or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.[EN] This letter presents a novel compact folded bandpass filter in empty substrate integrated coaxial line (ESICL) technology. To obtain these compact filters, the inverters are modified to provide a 180 degrees bend when inserted in an ESICL. As a result, the proposed filter has a more compact topology based on parallel resonators. A sixth-order Chebyshev bandpass filter operating at 3 GHz has been designed, manufactured, and measured to experimentally validate this new folded configuration. The length of the novel compact filter has been reduced by 82.2% with respect to an equivalent in-line filter, obtaining very similar results in terms of electrical response.This work was supported in part by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Spanish Government through Research Projects under Grant TEC2016-75934-C4-3-R and Grant TEC2016-75934-C4-1-R and in part by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades through the Fellowship Program for Training University Professors.Martinez, L.; Belenguer, A.; Boria Esbert, VE.; Borja, AL. (2019). Compact Folded Bandpass Filter in Empty Substrate Integrated Coaxial Line at S-Band. IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters. 29(5):315-317. https://doi.org/10.1109/LMWC.2019.2909178S31531729

Highly Versatile Coplanar Waveguide Line With Electronically Reconfigurable Bandwidth and Propagation Characteristics

[EN] This paper describes a coplanar waveguide coupled to two split-ring resonators that, in turn, are loaded with two different reactive elements. By these means, balanced composite right/left-handed-like (CRLH-like) and also dual balanced CRLH-like (D-CRLH-like) responses can be obtained with the same structure showing opposite propagation characteristics. This behavior is achieved by simply varying one of the reactive elements, i.e., the capacitive or inductive load. The physical behavior of these transmission lines has been successfully explained by means of a single equivalent circuit. Besides, the proposed transmission lines have an extended bandwidth due to the balanced nature of the structure. The bandwidth of these lines can be electronically controlled using varactor diodes reverse-biased by an external dc voltage. Thus, a reconfigurable cell with CRLH-like and D-CRLH-like propagation has been designed and manufactured. The simulated and measured results show fractional bandwidths from 0% (no transmission) to 9.3% for simulations and from 0% (no transmission) to 8.7% for measurements. Undoubtedly, these new proposed transmission lines will be useful for designing reconfigurable devices that can be used in future communication systems such as radar, wireless applications, global positioning systems, or radio-frequency identification systems, among others.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Spanish Government, under Research Project TEC2013-47037-C05-3-R and Research Project TEC2013-47037-C05-1-R and by the Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte under the Fellowship Program for Training University Professors.Martinez Cano, L.; Lucas Borja, A.; Boria Esbert, VE.; Belenguer, A. (2017). Highly Versatile Coplanar Waveguide Line With Electronically Reconfigurable Bandwidth and Propagation Characteristics. IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques. 65(1):128-135. https://doi.org/10.1109/TMTT.2016.2613526S12813565

Slotted ESIW Antenna with high efficiency for a MIMO Radar Sensor

[EN] This paper introduces a slotted empty substrate integrated waveguide (ESIW) antenna for a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar sensor. The proposed system is based on the MIMO radar architecture. Orthogonal signals are sent from the transmitters, in such a manner that a MIMO image reconstruction is possible. The presented system application targets the surveillance of strategic areas in gas pipelines and nuclear plants. ESIW technology enables a high-efficiency, low-profile, and compact antenna for these MIMO systems. The fabricated device includes a transition to microstrip line, and, in consequence, the antenna can be integrated with the rest of the system in a standard integrated circuit. The slotted ESIW antenna design and measured results for the targeted application are presented in this paper. The measured results present a gain greater than 15 dBi and return loss below ¿13 dB over the targeted frequency band of operation (16¿16.5 GHz). To the best of the authors¿ knowledge, this is the first slotted ESIW antenna reported in the scientific literature up to now.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Spanish Government, under research projects TEC2016-75934-C4-3-R and TEC2016-75934-C4-1-R.Miralles-Navarro, E.; Belenguer Martinez, A.; Mateo Sotos, J.; Torres Aranda, AM.; Esteban González, H.; Lucas Borja, A.; Boria Esbert, VE. (2018). Slotted ESIW Antenna with high efficiency for a MIMO Radar Sensor. Radio Science. 53(5):605-610. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017RS006461S60561053

Low Loss Ferrite Y-Junction Circulator Based on Empty Substrate Integrated Coaxial Line at Ku-Band

International audienc

Balanced Right/Left-Handed Coplanar Waveguide With Stub-Loaded Split-Ring Resonators

In this letter, a host coplanar waveguide (CPW) loaded with modified Split Ring Resonators (SRR) is presented. In recent publications, it has been demonstrated that the capacitive interaction between the host CPW line and the SRRs is the cause of a right-handed band, which degrades the selectivity of the response. Consequently, an open-ended microstrip stub connected to the rings is used to modify this interaction, and thus have an effective control of the rejection above the pass band. Fortunately, these stubs only affect the frequency position of the right-handed band. As a result, it is quite straightforward to obtain Balanced Composite Right/Left-Handed (CLRH) transmission lines with increased transmission bandwidth and improved rejection levels, which are the main drawbacks of traditional SRR loaded CPW lines. Besides, the response of the modified cell shows a pair of transmission zeros at both sides of the passband. Therefore, this new cell is a very interesting choice for designing balanced CLRH lines and very attractive for filter applications

Meteor studies in the framework of the JEM-EUSO program

Abstract We summarize the state of the art of a program of {UV} observations from space of meteor phenomena, a secondary objective of the JEM-EUSO international collaboration. Our preliminary analysis indicates that JEM-EUSO, taking advantage of its large {FOV} and good sensitivity, should be able to detect meteors down to absolute magnitude close to 7. This means that JEM-EUSO should be able to record a statistically significant flux of meteors, including both sporadic ones, and events produced by different meteor streams. Being unaffected by adverse weather conditions, JEM-EUSO can also be a very important facility for the detection of bright meteors and fireballs, as these events can be detected even in conditions of very high sky background. In the case of bright events, moreover, exhibiting some persistence of the meteor train, preliminary simulations show that it should be possible to exploit the motion of the {ISS} itself and derive at least a rough 3D reconstruction of the meteor trajectory. Moreover, the observing strategy developed to detect meteors may also be applied to the detection of nuclearites, exotic particles whose existence has been suggested by some theoretical investigations. Nuclearites are expected to move at higher velocities than meteoroids, and to exhibit a wider range of possible trajectories, including particles moving upward after crossing the Earth. Some pilot studies, including the approved Mini-EUSO mission, a precursor of JEM-EUSO, are currently operational or in preparation. We are doing simulations to assess the performance of Mini-EUSO for meteor studies, while a few meteor events have been already detected using the ground-based facility EUSO-TA

Search for Scalar Diphoton Resonances in the Mass Range 65−60065-600 GeV with the ATLAS Detector in pppp Collision Data at s\sqrt{s} = 8 TeVTeV

A search for scalar particles decaying via narrow resonances into two photons in the mass range 65–600 GeV is performed using $20.3\text{}\text{}{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ of $\sqrt{s}=8\text{}\text{}\mathrm{TeV}$ $pp$ collision data collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The recently discovered Higgs boson is treated as a background. No significant evidence for an additional signal is observed. The results are presented as limits at the 95% confidence level on the production cross section of a scalar boson times branching ratio into two photons, in a fiducial volume where the reconstruction efficiency is approximately independent of the event topology. The upper limits set extend over a considerably wider mass range than previous searches