I/UCRC FRP: Collaborative Research: Super-resolution methods for microwave emission source microscopy

随着电子产品中时钟速度和数据速率的增加，不需要的电磁发射问题变得越来越严重。因此，在电子产品的开发期间，电子设备设计者花费了大量的时间和精力来追踪和解决电磁兼容性问题。由于缺乏适当的传感工具，电磁兼容工程师经常不得不求助于临时试错技术来确定合规性，这减慢了设备开发周期。发射源显微镜提供了一种潜在的强大工具，可以通过成像和/或映射电子产品中辐射源的位置来改善这种情况。 然而，基本上等同于微波显微镜，发射源显微镜技术，目前，具有分辨率限制，仅使其在频率高于~5 GHz时有用。这项研究探讨了提高微波显微镜分辨率极限的方法，使其适用于大多数电子兼容性问题发生的较低频率。除了直接应用于定位不需要的辐射源，具有高精度和信心，这最终将减少生产延迟，所提出的方法也可以用于电磁能量的辐射机制的研究。其他更广泛的影响包括使用这种新技术作为可视化微波电磁辐射源的教育工具。本研究的最终目标是开发微波发射源显微镜的超分辨率技术，使其可用于检测亚衍射极限分辨率的电磁辐射源。研究重点包括：（1）开发具有特殊点扩散函数的超分辨率微波显微镜系统;（2）开发具有水浸的超分辨率微波显微镜系统;以及（3）开发STED启发的使用可移动吸收体屏幕或光学调制吸收体层的超分辨率微波显微镜系统。对于每个系统的原型将开发和由此产生的分辨率，动态范围和灵敏度的技术将进行实验研究。测量将来自于由外部源和有源电子器件激励的无源结构的实验。

As clock speeds and data rates in electronic products increase, the problem of unwanted electromagnetic emissions become more and more severe. As a result, during the development of electronic products, considerable amounts of time and effort are spent by electronic device designers in tracking down and resolving electromagnetic compliance issues. Due to the lack of appropriate sensing tools, very often electromagnetic compatibility engineers have to resort to ad hoc trial-and-error techniques to determine compliance, which slows down the device development cycle. Emission source microscopy provides a potentially powerful tool that can improve this situation by imaging and/or mapping the locations of radiating sources in electronic products. However, being essentially equivalent to a microwave microscope, the emission source microscopy technique, presently, has resolution limits that only make it useful at frequencies above ~5 GHz. This research explores ways to improve the resolution limit of microwave microscopy, making it applicable to lower frequencies where the majority of electronic compliance problems occur. Besides direct application in locating sources of unwanted radiation with high accuracy and confidence, which ultimately will reduce production delays, the proposed methods can also be used in the research of radiation mechanisms of electromagnetic energy. Additional broader impacts include the use of this new technology as an educational tool for the visualization of microwave electromagnetic radiation sources. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop super-resolution techniques for microwave emission source microscopy so it can be used to detect sources of electromagnetic radiation with sub-diffraction limit resolution. Research foci to be explored include: (1) development of super-resolution microwave microscopy systems with special point spread function; (2) development of super-resolution microwave microscopy systems with water immersion; and (3) development of STED-inspired super-resolution microwave microscopy systems using movable absorber screens or optically-modulated absorber layers. For each system prototypes will be developed and the resulting resolution, dynamic range, and sensitivity of the technique will be examined experimentally. Measurements will come from experiments with passive structures excited by external sources and active electronic devices.