Researchers at Chalmers University in Sweden have combined flexibility and terahertz detection into one flexible, graphene-based detector that could lead to new products such as wearable terahertz sensors for medical diagnosis. In research published in the journal Applied Physics Letters, the Chalmers researchers developed a field-effect transistor (FET) built up on a plastic substrate in […]
ANTICOUNTERFEITING Radiated Electromagnetic Emission for Integrated Circuit Authentication Counterfeit integrated circuits are a growing problem with economic and safety implications. Semiconductor makers and embedded-system designers are looking for ways of making sure that chips really are what they purport to be. The authors propose fingerprinting each IC’s electromagnetic radiation emissions using a variability-aware circuit configuration, […]
University of Washington (UW) researchers have developed a low-cost, long-range data-communication system that could make it possible for medical sensors or billions of low-cost “internet of things” objects to connect via radio signals at long distances (up to 2.8 kilometers) and with 1000 times lower required power (9.25 microwatts in an experiment) compared to existing […]
FISH-EYE BEAM-SPLITTER Realizing All-Dielectric Devices from Transformation Electromagnetics A team from Oxford and the University of London fabricated and tested a 2-D generalized Maxwell fish-eye lens has been from all-dielectric polymer/ceramic composite materials. The graded refractive index profile of the lens, discretized into a concentric-ring structure, functioned as a two-way beam splitter. Epoxy composites, with […]
Low modulus, compliant systems of sensors, circuits and radios designed to intimately interface with the soft tissues of the human body are of growing interest, due to their emerging applications in continuous, clinical-quality health monitors and advanced, bioelectronic therapeutics. Although recent research establishes various materials and mechanics concepts for such technologies, all existing approaches involve […]
WPT Ultra-Light Rectenna for Harvesting Next-Generation LTE RF Energy A novel, compact, ultralightweight multiband RF energy harvester fabricated of nested annular slots on a paper substrate to operate in all recently released LTE bands (range 0.79-0.96 GHz; 1.71-2.17 GHz; and 2.5-2.69 GHz). The design features an RF-to-dc conversion efficiency in the range of 5%-16% for […]
Silicon has been the mainstay of chips because silicon possesses a “Goldilocks” band gap of 1.1 electron Volts (eV), which makes it possible to operate integrated circuits at a low voltage, leading to reduced leakage of current. Another key feature of silicon is that it can be used to make a convenient “native” insulator, in […]
NONLINEAR OPTICS Terahertz Quantum Cascade Laser Frequency Combs Quantum cascade lasers have shown tremendous potential for generating frequency combs in the mid-infrared and terahertz regions. Four wave mixing (FWM) is the main comb formation process. Group velocity dispersion (GVD) is the main comb-degradation mechanism. And spatial hole burning (SHB) has a considerable impact on whether […]
As we start looking towards more comprehensive exploration of the Moon and of Mars, the assumption is that we’re working on sending humans to the surface of those worlds. It’s going to be exponentially more difficult and dangerous than sending robots, but that’s what exploration is all about, right? There’s an article in the current […]
ANTENNAS Understanding Phase Noise from Vibrating Antennas Vibrating antennas distort signals. Previous analyses have focused on how physical distortion of the antenna structure changes beam patterns. The vibrational velocity and acceleration also have an effect, however, producing Doppler distortions that contribute heavily to noise at vibration frequencies up to 1000 Hz. CALL FOR PAPERS Substrate […]
RADAR Miniature mmWave Sensor for High-Accuracy Measurement A highly miniaturized, commercially available millimeter wave radar sensor working in the 121 to 127 GHz range can achieve distance measurements accurate to within ±6 micrometers over a measurement distance of 35 mm. On-chip radar circuitry and external antennas are integrated into an 8 mm x 8 mm, […]
A wireless industry consortium is developing a new technology called MulteFire that it says delivers the high performance of 4G LTE cellular networks while being as easy to deploy as Wi-Fi routers.Rather than relying on the licensed spectrum purchased for today’s LTE service, MulteFire operates entirely in the unlicensed 5 gigahertz band. And to set […]
5G technologies are early in their development, and the business cases for them are a bit fuzzy, but wireless researchers and executives still had plenty to celebrate this week at the annual Brooklyn 5G Summit. They’ve made steady progress on defining future 5G networks, and have sped up the schedule for the first phase of […]
A world of millimeter-wave networks, laid out by computer, crisscrossing cities and into the stratosphere, where cell phone towers can be easily replaced by tethered autonomous copters—that’s the telecommunications infrastructure of the future. So says Facebook’s Yael Maguire, head of the company’s Connectivity Lab. Read more
Thermoacoustic Effect Turns Microwaves into Underwater Sound In the thermoacoustic effect, heat from electromagnetic waves striking the water’s surface generates sound waves. A University of Arizona team has demonstrated benchtop thermoacoustic communications (TAC), successfully transforming microwave signals in air into sound signals under water, received by an acoustic sensor. The experiments and theoretical analysis suggest […]
An international team of researchers has developed a low-power gas sensor chip that can operate at room temperature, making possible the development of personal air-quality monitoring devices that we could carry around with us. In research described in the journal Science Advances, the team of researchers fabricated a chemical-sensitive field-effect transistor (CS-FET) platform based on […]
