STTR Phase I: Electronically Tunable RF Passives on Planar Multi-Layer Metamaterials

STTR 第一阶段：平面多层超材料上的电子可调射频无源器件

• 批准号: 0539198
• 负责人: Jesus Castaneda
• 金额: $ 9.99万
• 依托单位: Bridge Wave Electronics
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-01-01 至 2006-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0539198&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: STTR; Phase; Electronically; Tunable; RF

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project investigates a new type of electronically tunable RF passives for reconfigurable multi-band and multi-function RF front end radio systems. The front-end passives including antennas, filters, baluns, and transmission line inductors and capacitors are printed on an engineered metalized material (meta-materials) made on common printed-circuit multiple metal-dielectric layer structures. By tuning the injected currents on meta-material, it could be possible to adjust material characteristics and as a result, the central frequency and operating band of a passive component. The design of such an electronically tunable system requires a rigorous electromagnetic analysis of passive components, meta-materials, and their interactions. The desired planar meta-materials are compact in size with the metal profile resonant frequencies close to the device frequencies. The entire tunable system design requires the modeling of electromagnetic coupling between components and meta-materials and involves a three-dimensional field analysis of the complete structure.Wireless communication technology and applications have seen tremendous growth in recent years. Present wireless technology is geared toward the consolidation of multiple networks into one communication system for global roaming. There is an ever increasing demand for broadband multimedia applications for personal communication systems (PCS) that are extremely compact in size with multiple functionalities. A compact and power efficient implementation of multi-standard and multi-functional system calls for a tunable or reconfigurable RF front-end that is completely integrated with the rest of the system on circuit boards. RF passives on the circuit board (outside the chips) remain the bottleneck for device miniaturization and reconfiguration.

该小型企业技术转让（STTR）第一阶段项目研究了一种新型的电子可调谐RF无源器件，用于可重新配置的多频段和多功能RF前端无线电系统。包括天线、滤波器、平衡-不平衡变换器以及传输线电感器和电容器在内的前端无源器件印刷在工程金属化材料（元材料）上，该材料在常见的印刷电路多金属-介电层结构上制成。通过调整超材料上的注入电流，可以调整材料特性，从而调整无源元件的中心频率和工作频带。这种电子可调系统的设计需要对无源元件、超材料及其相互作用进行严格的电磁分析。所需的平面超材料尺寸紧凑，金属轮廓谐振频率接近器件频率。整个可调谐系统的设计需要对元器件和超材料之间的电磁耦合进行建模，并对整个结构进行三维场分析。近年来，无线通信技术和应用得到了巨大的发展。目前的无线技术面向将多个网络合并到一个通信系统中以用于全球漫游。对于尺寸极其紧凑且具有多种功能的个人通信系统（PCS）的宽带多媒体应用的需求不断增加。多标准和多功能系统的紧凑和功率高效的实现需要可调谐或可重新配置的RF前端，该前端与电路板上的系统的其余部分完全集成。电路板上（芯片外部）的RF无源器件仍然是器件小型化和重新配置的瓶颈。