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提高，不需要的电磁辐射问题变得越来越严重。因此，在电子产品的开发过程中，电子设备设计者花费了相当多的时间和精力来追踪和解决电磁合规性问题。由于缺乏合适的传感工具，电磁兼容性工程师经常不得不求助于特殊的试错技术来确定合规性，这减缓了设备开发周期。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/或绘制电子产品中辐射源的位置来改善这种情况。然而，发射源显微镜技术基本上等同于微波显微镜，目前的分辨率限制仅使其在~5 GHz以上的频率下有用。这项研究探索了提高微波显微镜分辨率极限的方法，使其适用于电子顺应性问题最多的较低频率。该方法除了可直接应用于高精度、高置信度的无用辐射源定位，最终减少生产延误外，还可用于电磁能辐射机理的研究。其他更广泛的影响包括将这项新技术用作显示微波电磁辐射源的教育工具。本研究的最终目的是发展微波发射源显微镜的超分辨技术，使其能够用于亚衍射极限分辨率的电磁辐射源的探测。将探索的研究重点包括：(1)开发具有特殊点扩散函数的超分辨率微波显微系统；(2)开发水浸超分辨率微波显微系统；(3)开发基于可移动吸收屏或光调制吸收层的受STED启发的超分辨率微波显微系统。对于每个系统，将开发原型，并将对所产生的分辨率、动态范围和技术的灵敏度进行实验检验。测量将来自由外部源和有源电子设备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.