Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Instrumentation Electronics and Microelectronics'

Cette thèse porte sur la conception d'un circuit intégré CMOS pour l'électronique de lecture de capteurs bolométriques à base de semiconducteurs ou supraconducteurs haute-température. Dans ce manuscrit, une chaîne de traitement du signal est étudiée. Elle est composée d'un amplificateur différentiel à gain fixé pour des températures de 40 à 400K, ainsi que d'un filtre de fréquence passe-bas actif à haute dynamique. Une architecture optimale d'amplificateur est définie sans contre-réaction, permettant d'atteindre une large bande passante (17MHz pour un gain de 40dB), une consommation réduite (Iq = 2mA) et une haute impédance d'entrée. Afin de fixer le gain avec précision dans la structure CMOS, deux méthodes différentes sont présentées et vérifiées sur un circuit intégré. Par la suite, le comportement des filtres dans la bande d'atténuation est étudié afin d'augmenter la fréquence de coupure maximale. Deux structures avec une faible influence des éléments actifs « réels » sont conçues: le filtre Sallen-Key amélioré et la structure basée sur un convoyeur du courant CCII-. Enfin, nous présentons un CCII- intégré en CMOS ayant une très faible impédance de sortie.

Glasses are used in microelectronic packaging for insulation and passivation purposes. To optimize the performance of these packages, it is necessary to investigate new glasses or improve on properties of the glasses in use. The insulating glass should have low dielectric constant, low dissipation factor, low glass transition temperature, high chemical resistivity, and a thermal expansion coefficient matching the substrate. In this study, various aluminoborophosphosilicate glasses containing Ca(Mg)O, Ca(Mg)F₂, and AlF₃ as flux were investigated. Processing temperatures for these glasses range from 1300°C to 1500°C. The coefficients of thermal expansion range from 4.52 μ/°C to 9.39 μ/°C. The dielectric constant as a function of frequency and composition is in the range of 4.1 to 5.2. The index of refraction for these glasses is in the range of 1.52 to 1.58. Glass transition and softening temperatures as low as 538°C and 622°C, respective, were found. Results of this investigation are discussed in terms of the possible use of aluminoborophosphosilicate glasses in microelectronic packaging.

Thesis (M. S.)--Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010.<br>Committee Chair: Graham, Sam; Committee Member: Joshi, Yogendra; Committee Member: Kalaitzidou, Kyriaki. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Le sujet de ma thèse est la conception d’ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits) mixtes durcis aux radiations pour observatoires spatiaux. La thèse se déroule dans le contexte d'un futur observatoire spatial à rayons X de l’ESA, se nomme « Advanced Telescope for High ENergy Astrophysics (ATHENA) ». Les ASICs développés appartiennent à l'un des deux instruments scientifiques de cet observatoire, s’appelle « X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) », et sont dédiés à l'un des sous-systèmes de l'instrument X-IFU, le WFEE (Warm Front End Electronics).Le WFEE est un système électronique mixte comprenant principalement un amplificateur à bas bruit (LNA), un circuit de polarisation configurable pour SQUIDs, un buffer et un thermomètre. Par conséquent, mes travaux de thèse sont composés de deux parties: la partie numérique et la partie analogique.Mes contributions aux circuits numériques du WFEE sont présentées dans « Part III » de ma thèse. Elles comprennent la conception d'une nouvelle librairie des portes logiques numériques durcies aux radiations et la création d'un nouveau décodeur I2C avec ses schémas et layouts optimisés, en utilisant ma nouvelle librairie numérique. Les résultats représentatifs des essais de radiation sur les composants et les registres à 8-bit avec une telle conception durcie aux radiations sont également discutés dans « Part III » de ma thèse. Tous les circuits numériques dans les deux nouveaux ASICs «AwaXe_v2» et «AwaXe_v2.5» sont constitués de cette nouvelle librairie numérique durcie aux radiations, ainsi que ceux dans les futurs ASICs. Les décodeurs I2C optimisés ont prouvé un bon fonctionnement, testés avec les autres circuits intégrés dans «AwaXe_v2» et «AwaXe_v2.5».Mes contributions sur les circuits analogiques du WFEE sont présentées dans « Part IV ». Elles comprennent la conception d'un LNA, d'un buffer, d'une référence de courant et d'un convertisseur numérique-analogique (DAC). Le LNA est essentiel pour atteindre la résolution spectrale élevée sans précédent de 2,5 eV proposée par l'instrument X-IFU. Il a une conception originale, intégrée dans les ASICs v2 et v2.5. Il a été entièrement testée et a donné des résultats satisfaisants et cohérents. Ses performances ont été prouvées expérimentalement pour répondre à toutes les spécifications requises par le CNES. Fonctionnant dans la bande de fréquence de 1-5 MHz, il fournit un gain de tension super-linéaire de 85 V/V, une large bande passante de -1 dB à 17,5 MHz et une faible dérive de gain &lt;350 ppm/K. Il réalise un très faible bruit à tension ≈ 0,8 nV/√Hz à l’entrée, ainsi qu’une faible fréquence de coupure de bruit 1/f &lt;4 kHz, un bon PSRR et un bon CMRR. Le buffer utilise une conception similaire à celle du LNA et a besoin plus d’études dans les travaux futurs. La référence de courant a été entièrement testée avec une sortie de 1 mA. Grâce à sa conception originale, qui compense les références CTAT et PTAT, elle est capable de fournir un courant super stable, indépendant de la température, parfaite pour la polarisation de SQUID. Enfin, j'ai également développé un DAC à 8-bit pour la polarisation de SQUID. 8 DACs, une référence de courant et un bus série composent un circuit complet de la polarisation de SQUID d’un canal WFEE. Ce circuit a été intégré dans l’ASIC «AwaXe_v2.5» et a donné un bon résultat lors de la première mesure.En conclusion, ma thèse a produit deux ASICs pour le WFEE: «AwaXe_v2» et «AwaXe_v2.5». Les deux ASICs montrent de bonnes performances. En particulier, le dernier ASIC intègre tous les composants d'un canal WFEE, ce qui peut être considéré comme un prototype. Ainsi, il est un bon représentant de mes travaux de la thèse. En outre, les performances élevées du LNA et de la référence de courant aussi montrent le potentiel pour s’adapter à d’autres missions scientifiques similaires<br>The subject of my thesis is the development of radiation-hardened mixed-signal Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) for space observatories. The thesis takes place in the context of a future X-ray space observatory of the European Space Agency, named Advanced Telescope for High ENergy Astrophysics (ATHENA). The ASICs developed belong to one of the two scientific instruments of the observatory, called X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) and are dedicated to one of the subsystems of the X-IFU instrument, the WFEE (Warm Front End Electronics).The WFEE is a mixed electronic system, mainly including a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA), a configurable SQUID bias, a buffer and a thermometer. Consequently, my thesis work is composed of two parts: the digital part and the analogue part.My contributions to the digital microelectronics of the WFEE are presented in Part III of my thesis. It includes the design of a new radiation-hardened digital library and the creation of a new I2C decoder with optimised schematic and layout, made of my new digital library. The representative radiation assessment results concerning the components and 8-bit registers with such radiation-hardened design are also discussed in Part III of the thesis. All the digital circuits of the two new ASICs “AwaXe_v2” and “AwaXe_v2.5” are made of this new radiation-hardened digital library, as well as those in the future ASICs. The optimised I2C decoders have been proved a good functioning along with the other circuits, integrated into the “AwaXe_v2” and “AwaXe_v2.5”.My contributions on the analogue circuits of the WFEE are presented in Part IV. It includes the design of an LNA, a buffer, a current reference and a Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC). The LNA is critical for fulfilling the unprecedented high spectral resolution of 2.5 eV proposed by the X-IFU instrument. Its original design has been integrated into the ASICs v2 and v2.5, both fully tested and showing satisfying and coherent results. Its performance has been experimentally proved to fulfil all the specifications required by the CNES. Operating within the frequency band of 1-5 MHz, it provides a super-linear voltage gain of 85 V/V, with a large bandwidth of −1 dB up to 17.5 MHz and a low gain drift &lt; 350 ppm/K. It realises an ultra-low voltage noise ≈ 0.8 nV/√Hz at the input, as well as a low 1/f noise corner frequency &lt; 4 kHz, a good PSRR and CMRR. The buffer uses a similar design as the LNA and needs to be further studied in future work. The current reference has been fully tested with an output of 1 mA. Thanks to its original design compensating a CTAT and a PTAT reference, it has been proved to be capable of providing a super-stable temperature independent current, perfect for the SQUID bias. At last, I have also developed an 8-bit DAC for the SQUID bias. 8 DACs along with a current reference and a series bus compose a complete SQUID bias of one WFEE channel. This circuit has been integrated into the ASIC “AwaXe_v2.5” and showed a good result for the first measurement.In conclusion, my thesis has yielded two ASICs for the WFEE: “AwaXe_v2” and “AwaXe_v2.5”. Both ASICs show good performance. In particular, the last ASIC integrates all the components of one WFEE channel, which can be considered as a prototype. Thus, it is a good representative of my work. Moreover, the high performance of the LNA and the current reference also give them the potential to adapt with other similar scientific missions

The design and fabrication of an optical Fiber Interrogation Instrumentation System is studied in this thesis. The objective is to design a Fiber Bragg Grating Interrogation (FBGI) instrumentation system using a Fiber Fabry Perot Tunable Filter (FFP-TF). An FBGI instrumentation system is designed to monitor the back-reflected wavelength shifts from a Distributed Fiber Bragg Grating (DFBG) network and to interpret those wavelength shifts into environmental temperature, strain and pressure variations. This thesis encapsulates the complete system development lifecycle, inclusive of an applied case study of an FBGI Instrumentation system for monitoring the movements of bedsore patients. Specifically, in this thesis, an overview of Fiber Bragg Grating based fiber-optic sensors and their applications are presented, a novel design and implementation of an FBG interrogation system is described, which includes a detailed study on embedding techniques of FBGs in carbon composite, and an analysis of the test results from different embedding configurations is included. The discussion combines the novel approaches taken to resolve multiple peaks and peak-splitting phenomena observed in the reflected spectrum. A novel approach to remove the undesired temperature effect during strain sensing has been illustrated using neutral layer embedding of temperature FBG sensors. This thesis proposes the system architectures for the designs of a single-board microprocessor and a DAQ card based interrogation system using FFP-TF scanning technology. A 16-bit microprocessor ADSP-2181 from Analog Devices and a Data Acquisition Card DAQ-6015 from National Instruments is used as the front-end signal-processing circuit. The electronics circuit is built on a 4-layer printed circuit board. By incorporating an optical switch in the design and implementing a multiplexing technique, more FBGs are detected. This novel approach is successful due to the quasi-static nature of the measured environmental changes. This thesis demonstrates a detailed analysis and experiments on the optical path of the design. These involve design and verification of a 980-nm laser pump circuit, design and experiments of an ASE source and an EDFA design where it is shown that EDFA design is necessary to provide the required amplification to the reflected signal spectrum. In addition, EDFA gain flattening, FFP-TF characteristics verification, optical-receiver design and the like are described. It is demonstrated that co-directional pumping is better than counter-directional pumping. In addition, the dependency of EDFA gain on the wavelength, the input power of the signal and the length of the erbium doped fiber is discussed. Novel approaches such as linear segmentation and look-up table implementation are proposed to compensate for the non-linear characteristics of the FFP-TF filter. An innovative coarse and fine sampling technique is implemented to improve the sampling speed while keeping the tuning speed of FFP-TF low in the range of 100--300 Hz to achieve better resolution of the FFP-TF output. Finally recommendations are suggested for future work. In general the performance can be improved by running the signal processing algorithms on an on-board high-speed processor.

The work presented in this thesis shows how tunneling spectroscopy techniques can be applied to metallic nanoparticles to obtain useful information about fundamental physical processes in nanoscopic length scales. At low temperatures, the discrete character of the energy spectrum of these particles, allows the study of spin-polarized current via resolved "electron-in-a-box" energy levels. In samples consisting of two ferromagnetic electrodes tunnel coupled to single aluminum nanoparticles, spin accumulation mechanisms are responsible for the observed spin-polarized current. The observed effect of an applied perpendicular magnetic field, relative to the magnetization orientation of the electrodes, indicates the suppression of spin precession in such small particles. More generally, in the presence of an external non-collinear magnetic field, it is the local field "felt" by the particle that determines the character of the tunnel current. This effect is also observed in the case where only one of the electrodes is ferromagnetic. In contrast to the non-magnetic case, ferromagnetic nanoparticles exhibit a much more complex energy spectrum, which cannot be accounted for, using the simple free-electron picture. It will be shown that interactions between quasi-particle excitations due to sequential electron tunneling and spin excitations in the particle are likely to play an important role in the observed temperature/voltage dependence of magnetic hysteresis loops.

Distance education has the ability to transcend distance and time, reaching students anywhere at any time, particularly those underrepresented in engineering. Engineering is a practice-oriented profession requiring an interweaving of scientific theory and applied hands-on activities. Despite the need for distance education in engineering, few studies have systematically investigated the impact of student achievement and attitude in distance engineering laboratories. This quasi-experimental research addressed that need by studying the cognitive and affective domains of achievement in engineering laboratories while employing computer-based and traditional oscilloscopes. The students from two courses, electrical engineering for nonmajors and electronic fundamentals, were randomly assigned into treatment and comparison groups. The students' achievement and attitudes were gauged using assessment instruments and an attitudinal survey. These results were statistically analyzed and conclusions are discussed. The results suggested that computer-based instruments were viable in engineering laboratories.

La presente dissertazione descrive il design, la caratterizzazione e il funzionamento di sistemi elettronici per esperimenti di Fisica delle particelle (LHCb) e Fisica del neutrino (CUORE e CUPID). A partire dal 2019, l'esperimento LHCb presso l'acceleratore LHC sarà aggiornato per lavorare a luminosità più elevata e molti dei suoi rivelatori dovranno essere riprogettati. Il rivelatore RICH, in particolare, dovrà adottare un sistema optoelettronico totalmente nuovo. Lo sviluppo di questo sistema ha già raggiunto una fase avanzata e diversi test eseguiti su fascio hanno permesso di verificare le prestazioni dell'intero sistema. Per migliorare la stabilità, il filtraggio e la regolazione delle tensioni di alimentazione del circuito di front-end, è stato sviluppato un regolatore lineare a basso dropout e resistente alla radiazione, denominato ALDO. Sono qui presentate le strategie di progetto, la misurazione delle prestazioni e i risultati delle campagne di irraggiamento di questo dispositivo. Nel campo della fisica del neutrino, grandi array di macrobolometri, come quelli adottati dall'esperimento CUORE e dal suo futuro aggiornamento CUPID, offrono delle caratteristiche uniche per lo studio del doppio decadimento beta senza neutrini. Il loro funzionamento richiede particolari strategie progettuali nel sistema elettronico di lettura, che è qui descritto nella sua interezza. Sono anche presentate nel dettaglio le misure di qualifica e ottimizzazione dei parametri di funzionamento di tutto il sistema, oltre che l'integrazione all'interno dell'area sperimentale. Infine sono presentati gli aggiornamenti di alcuni sottosistemi elettronici in vista della fase finale di CUPID.<br>The present dissertation describes design, qualification and operation of several electronic instrumentations for High Energy Particle Physics experiments (LHCb) and Neutrino Physics experiments (CUORE and CUPID). Starting from 2019, the LHCb experiment at the LHC accelerator will be upgraded to operate at higher luminosity and several of its detectors will be redesigned. The RICH detector will require a completely new optoelectronic readout system. The development of such system has already reached an advanced phase, and several tests at particle beam facilities allowed to qualify the performance of the entire system. In order to achieve a higher stability and a better power supply regulation for the front-end chip, a rad-hard low dropout linear regulator, named ALDO, has been developed. Design strategies, performance tests and results from the irradiation campaign are presented. In the Neutrino Physics field, large-scale bolometric detectors, like those adopted by CUORE and its future upgrade CUPID, offer unique opportunities for the study of neutrinoless double beta decay. Their operation requires particular strategies in the readout instrumentation, which is described here in its entirety. The qualification and optimization of the working parameters as well as the integration of the system in the experimental area are also thoroughly discussed, together with the latest upgrades of two electronic subsystems for the future CUPID experiment.

Tantalum capacitors are electronic components that are widely used in many types of devices. They are particularly valued for their exceptionally high capacitance and volumetric efficiency. One of the most vital performance parameters for this type of capacitor is the ability to handle unwanted AC ripple, since high levels of ripple can lead to overheating and capacitor failure. Yet the actual ripple limit for a capacitor has been historically difficult to quantify, and has been previously provided to customers only in the form of heavily padded estimates. Throughout the capacitor industry there has been significant demand for more realistic ripple ratings. The discussion here describes a new test system that has been designed to meet this demand for ripple characterization of wet tantalum capacitors.

Nuclear medicine imaging using a gamma camera is a sensitive tool for mapping various physiological and biological processes in vivo. In some respects, the instrumentation for gamma-ray imaging is highly developed. Nevertheless, current technology in nuclear medicine has some significant limitations in the area of spatial resolution. Scintillator-based imaging systems most likely have reached their limits of spatial resolution. Achieving higher spatial resolution will require the use of semiconductor detectors. The first part and major focus of this dissertation is the development of a prototype imaging system based on modular CdZnTe semiconductor arrays. Each modular array is approximately 1.5 mm thick, and is patterned on one surface into a 64 x 64 array of pixels with 380-micron pitch. We present details of the design, the electronics, and system performance. The second part of this dissertation presents results on a coincidence-type surgical probe. The sensitivity of a surgical probe for tumor detection is often limited by spatial variations in radiotracer uptake in normal tissue. We are developing a probe for use with 111In that uses coincidences between the 171 keV and 245 keV gamma rays for background suppression. The performance of a coincidence probe was compared to that of single-gamma probe for the task of detecting radiolabeled tumor models in a water phantom containing an inhomogeneous background. A single-element NaI(Tl) probe was placed in random locations throughout the tank; the tumor was attached to the probe in half of the trials. Count data were recorded in three channels: 171 keV, 245 keV, and 416 keV. A linear discriminant was calculated from the data. The detectability index, d', was derived from the data and used to compare the optimal linear discriminant against the single-gamma energy peaks for counting times up to 30s. For a realistic 15s exposure time, d' for the linear discriminant attains a near-perfect value of 3. In contrast, the single-photon channel d' is always near zero, so this channel is worthless for background discrimination. Coincidence detection using linear discriminants shows promise for in vivo tumor localization with 111In-labelled radiopharmaceuticals.

ce rapport résume les développements réalisés en électronique pour lire le calorimètre à Argon Liquide (LAr) d'ATLAS au LHC puis le R&D effectué dans CALICE pour lire ceux de l'ILC en passant par les circuits développés pour lire les photomultiplicateurs multi-anode (MaPMT) pour OPERA ou pour la luminosité d'ATLAS et qui ont aussi des applications en imagerie médicale. Commencée au début des années 90, le R&D pour la calorimétrie d'ATLAS était extrêmement challenging en termes de vitesse de lecture, tenue aux radiations et précision de mesure. La vitesse élevée a nécessité une nouvelle approche de préamplificateurs de courant plutôt que de charge et la définition du bruit en ENI. Les préamplificateurs ont été développés a Orsay ainsi que les shapers monolithiques, ils sont détaillés dans le chapitre 1 ainsi que les considérations sur le filtrage numérique, qui constituait une nouveauté pour la communauté et qui ne donnait pas les résultas escomptés au début. Le chapitre 2 est consacré au système de calibration, développé et produit par Orsay et dont la performance poussée a nécessité des études approfondies. Le chapitre 3 clôt les études pour ATLAS avec un résumé des mesures qui ont dû être faites sur les 200 000 voies du détecteur pour le comprendre et le modéliser afin d'atteindre partout la précision et l'uniformité meilleures que le pourcent. Ces travaux pour ATLAS se sont achevés en 2004, même si des développements ont été réalisés pour les calorimètres de NA48 et D0 durant cette même période et sur des sujets connexes qui ne sont pas détaillés ici. La prochaine génération de collisionneurs après le LHC nécessitera une nouvelle génération de calorimètres, beaucoup plus granulaires (on parle d' « imaging calorimetry », avec des centaines de millions de canaux) et d'électronique de lecture intégrée dans le détecteur. Les ASICs développés pour cette application dans le cadre de la collaboration « CALICE » sont décrits au chapitre 4. Ils intègrent toutes les fonctions d'amplification, digitisation et lecture intégrée qui ont font de véritables « Systems On Chip » (SoC). Une famille de 3 circuits permet de lire le calorimètre électromagnétique Silicium-Tungstène, les RPCs du calorimètre hadronique digital ou les SiPM du calorimètre hadronique analogique ; très performants et versatiles, ils trouvent de nombreuses applications extérieures Ces circuits ont repris de précédents blocs de chips mis au point dans les années 2000 pour lire les photomultiplicateurs multi-anodes du Target Tracker de l'expérience OPERA puis du luminomètre de l'expérience ATLAS et qui sont décrits au chapitre 5 Ces circuits trouvent une continuation actuelle dans les photodétecteurs intégrés de grandes dimensions, développés pour de futures expériences Neutrino.

Many research and commercial environments need to measure fast time varying signals and need to control subsystems, e.g. actuators, also in real-time with high bandwidth and minimum latency. Existing commercial systems for data acquisition and control have many shortcomings and behave in a non-deterministic manner. Determinism or predictability is a key element of high performance real-time systems which must always meet specific deadlines under tight synchronizations. In this thesis, a new approach to very high-performance predictable real-time acquisition and control is proposed, theoretically analyzed, implemented in hardware, and experimentally tested. The resulting system is highly adaptable and reconfigurable, and has been applied to a number of problem areas including micro-robot control via a high performance parallel computer architecture, and cardiac electropotential mapping. Indeed, the resulting cardiac mapping system is so far as we know, the highest resolution produced to date.

La electrónica orgánica/impresa está continuamente creciendo en interés, con la aparición de nuevas propuestas y aplicaciones. Este tipo de tecnologías no pretenden competir directamente con las que provienen de la industria tradicional basada en Silicio, sino que tienen como propósito complementarla con nuevos dispositivos que proporcionen ciertas ventajas en determinadas situaciones, ya sea en términos de coste u otras. Sin embargo, en lo que se refiere al campo del procesado digital queda mucho trabajo por hacer para, paulatinamente, ir siguiendo los pasos del modelo ‘fabless’ que rige el mercado de semiconductores actual. Este modelo consiste en la deslocalización entre los equipos de diseño y los fabricantes. Respecto a dicho progreso me refiero no solo a las mejoras que acontecen a nivel de procesos de fabricación, sino también en el campo de la automatización de los procesos de diseño. Nuestro grupo de investigación concibió una novedosa estrategia para producir, de manera eficiente, diseños de circuitos digitales para electrónica impresa, basados en lo que denominamos Inkjet-configurable Gate Arrays, aprovechando las ventajas de la impresión digital. Estos Inkjet Gate Arrays consisten en matrices de transistores sobre sustratos flexibles que, una vez conectados mediante impresión digital, conforman puertas lógicas; las cuales, en su conjunto, materializan circuitos. El trabajo presentado en esta tesis se centra en una etapa específica de cualquier flujo de diseño común de circuitos integrados, llamada síntesis física. En concreto, este trabajo proporciona una novedosa metodología para resolver el problema de ubicar y conectar, ‘Placement and Routing’, los circuitos sobre las mencionadas matrices de transistores, teniendo en cuenta su rendimiento, y con independencia de la tecnología de fabricación. Se aborda la manera de cómo tratar con tecnologías impresas diferentes, que puedan presentar distintos niveles de rendimiento, normalmente debidos a la alta variabilidad intrínseca a los procesos de fabricación actuales. En tales casos, un factor clave para asegurar que la colocación de los circuitos sea funcionalmente correcta es poder procesar de manera efectiva la información sobre la distribución de fallos de las matrices. Además del concepto de mapeo según el rendimiento, la novedosa heurística aquí propuesta proporciona la capacidad de personalizar los circuitos, lo que permite mayor flexibilidad en su construcción, dependiendo de distintas razones u objetivos posibles (p. ej. congestión). Esta metodología no solo es conveniente para los primeros pasos que, en la actualidad, se están llevando a cabo en el desarrollo de prototipos de circuitos digitales para la electrónica orgánica, sino que también es escalable hacia nuevas mejoras en el rendimiento de las tecnologías de fabricación, así como en tamaños y densidad de integración.<br>Organic/Printed Electronics are, day by day, increasing on interest, as new applications are being proposed and developed. This kind of technologies do not intend to compete directly with the Silicon-based well-established industry, but rather to complement it with new devices that are advantageous for certain situations, whether in terms of cost or others. However, in the digital processing domain there is still much work to be done to, slowly but steadily, follow the steps of the conventional fabless model that rules today’s semiconductor market. I am referring not only to progresses at fabrication level, but also on the field of Electronic Design Automation. Our research group conceived a novel strategy to efficiently produce Printed Electronics digital circuit designs based on what we called Inkjet-configurable Gate Arrays, which takes advantage of digital printing techniques. The Inkjet Gate Arrays consist in matrices of transistors over flexible substrates that, after being connected by digital printing techniques, they describe logic gates, and thus circuits. The work presented in this dissertation targets a specific stage of any common Integrated Circuit design flow, referred to as physical synthesis. Specifically, my contribution provides a new approach to the Placement and Routing problem, where circuits are mapped onto the Inkjet Gate Arrays in a technology independent yield-aware manner. I tackle the issue of dealing with different Printed Electronics technologies that might present distinct yield properties, usually due to the intrinsic high variability of current fabrication processes. In such cases, being able to effectively process the IGA’s fault distribution information is key to ensure that the mapped circuits will be capable of working correctly, from a functional perspective. In addition to the yield awareness concept, the circuit personalization capabilities of the novel P&R heuristic proposed herein allow more mapping flexibility, depending on different possible reasons/purposes (e.g. congestion). This approach is not only convenient for today’s first steps of digital circuit prototyping over Organic Electronics, but also scalable to future technological improvements at yield level, and on sizes and integration density.

This work contains the analysis and redesign of a translinear circuit. This circuit appeared in the article by Robert Blauschild. The Blauschild circuit was analyzed on H-SPICE, a VAX computer circuit analysis program, with Burr-Brown Integrated Circuit Process 30 models. Circuit improvement to input voltage to current converter stage and circuit simplification of the output stage were implemented and simulated in the redesign. The results of the two simulations were compared, which showed that the improvements were valid and useful. Going through this redesign cycle of circuit analysis, computer simulation and bread-boarding served as an actual design engineering application with a real problem, solution, and result scenarios.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 1999.<br>Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 116 p. : ill. (some col.) Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-69).

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1999 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada<br>The Instrumentation and Telemetry Departments at Sandia National Laboratories have been instrumenting earth penetrators for over thirty years. Recorded acceleration data is used to quantify penetrator performance. Penetrator testing has become more difficult as desired impact velocities have increased. This results in the need for small-scale test vehicles and miniature instrumentation. A miniature recorder will allow penetrator diameters to significantly decrease, opening the window of testable parameters. Full-scale test vehicles will also benefit from miniature recorders by using a less intrusive system to instrument internal arming, fusing, and firing components. This single channel concept is the latest design in an ongoing effort to miniaturize the size and reduce the power requirement of acceleration instrumentation. A micro-controller/memory based system provides the data acquisition, signal conditioning, power regulation, and data storage. This architecture allows the recorder, including both sensor and electronics, to occupy a volume of less than 1.5 cubic inches, draw less than 200mW of power, and record 15kHz data up to 40,000 gs. This paper will describe the development and operation of this miniature acceleration recorder. Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the United States Department of Energy under contract DE-AC04- 94Al85000."

LHCb est l'une des quatre grandes expériences installées sur l'anneau du LHC. Le détecteur a pour but la mesure précise de la violation de CP et de canaux rares de désintégration dans le secteur des mésons B. Le calorimètre de l'expérience est un ensemble de quatre sous-systèmes : le détecteur de pied de gerbe, le ''preshower'' et les calorimètres électromagnétique (ECAL) et hadronique (HCAL). Il est essentiel pour la reconstruction des événements, pour le déclenchement de l'expérience et pour l'identification des électrons et des photons. Après une revue du détecteur LHCb, l'électronique des calorimètres est décrite dans la première partie de ce mémoire. Dans un premier temps l'électronique de lecture des voies des photomultiplicateurs des ECAL et HCAL est présentée en mettant l'accent sur ses performances, puis la carte de contrôle de l'ensemble du système calorimétrique de l'expérience est détaillée. Les chapitres trois et quatre concernent les programmes de test de cette électronique, les choix technologiques permettant de la rendre suffisamment tolérante aux radiations et les mesures quantifiant cette tolérance. La seconde partie de ce mémoire porte d'abord sur l'identification des photons avec les calorimètres de LHCb. La méthode est présentée avec ses performances. Enfin, l'étalonnage absolu en énergie des PRS et ECAL, basée sur les données enregistrées avec le détecteur en 2010, est décrite dans le dernier chapitre de cette même seconde partie.

La seconde révolution quantique du XXe siècle a contribué à un essor technologique en physique du solide. Les techniques d'ingénierie des matériaux couplées à celles de nanofabrication moderne ont favorisé le perfectionnement de sources d'électrons uniques sur demande. De par leur incroyable précision, elles sont désormais utilisées en métrologie et leur potentiel s'étend au récent domaine de l'optique quantique électronique, notamment à un candidat prometteur pour l’information quantique : le qubit volant électronique. Ces bits quantiques sont créés par de courtes impulsions de tension et la manipulation de leur état quantique se fait à la volée. À ce jour, l’impulsion de tension la plus courte atteint 27 ps, sur puce, dans un environnement cryogénique. Cependant, en raison de l'atténuation et de la dispersion du signal dans les lignes coaxiales, l'accès à des régimes quantiques électroniques d’échelle temporelle plus rapide demeure hors de portée.En revanche, grâce à l'avènement des lasers à impulsions ultracourtes et aux progrès en photonique et plasmonique, la technologie des photocommutateurs peut permettre la génération d'impulsions électromagnétiques de l'ordre de la picoseconde. La large bande passante de ces technologies opto-électroniques THz pourrait venir à bout de la barrière technique à laquelle sont confrontés les équipements électroniques standards. Bien que largement développées dans le cadre d'applications à température ambiante, les démonstrations d'intégration de ces technologies à une architecture quantique en environnement cryogénique restent toujours peu nombreuses. La réalisation d'une telle expérience débloquerait de nouvelles voies de recherche pour l'étude des dynamiques des dispositifs quantiques électroniques en physique du solide.Dans ce manuscrit, nous présentons la mise au point d'une installation expérimentale pouvant générer des impulsions de tension picoseconde en environnement cryogénique pour des applications de qubits volants. Un laser femtoseconde génère des impulsions qui sont injectées dans des fibres optiques intégrées à basse température. Fabriqué à la surface de GaAs basse température (LT-GaAs), un photocommutateur est cointégré au circuit quantique formé à partir d'un gaz d'électrons bidimensionnels (2DEG) à haute mobilité. Du fait de la réponse opto-électronique extrêmement rapide du LT-GaAs, le photocommutateur convertit les impulsions optiques en impulsions de tension d'une durée de quelques picosecondes seulement. Grâce à des guides d'ondes coplanaires (CPW) THz, l'impulsion est acheminée vers le 2DEG, où elle est utilisée comme source d'électrons uniques ultracourts.Pour effectuer la mesure pompe-sonde et résoudre le profil dynamique de telles impulsions, une installation expérimentale originale, impliquant des positionneurs piézo-électriques et des protocoles d'alignement à basses températures, a été mise en place. Comme preuve de concept, nous rapportons d'abord la caractérisation à 300 K d'impulsions électroniques d'une durée de 1.9 ps. Dans un deuxième temps, nous refroidissons le système à 4K, élargissant la preuve de concept aux environnements cryogéniques par la mesure d'impulsions de 2.3 ps. Ensuite, en intégrant une structure 2DEG au circuit THz, des excitations de plasmons THz ont pu être observées dans une cavité Fabry-Pérot. La fréquence de leur mode fondamental a été comparée à un modèle analytique, révélant des informations sur la densité de porteur du gaz électronique sous illumination. Parallèlement, des développements importants ont été menés sur la conception des CPWs dans le but de minimiser les réflexions indésirables du signal ainsi que les pertes par dispersion. Ces travaux ouvriront la voie à l'intégration d'impulsions de tension picoseconde dans les dispositifs quantiques nanoélectroniques et le contrôle de qubits volants électroniques par des grilles électrostatiques THz ultrarapides<br>The second quantum revolution of the 20th century contributed to a technological expansion in solid-state physics. Modern nanofabrication coupled to material processing techniques have facilitated the development of on-demand single-electron sources. With their remarkable precision, they are currently used for metrology purposes and hold key potential for the recent field of research of electron quantum optics, including a promising candidate for quantum information: the electron flying qubit. These quantum bits are created by short voltage pulses and manipulation of their quantum state occurs on-the-fly. The shortest voltage pulse reported so far attains 27 ps, on-chip, in a cryogenic environment. However, suffering from attenuation and dispersion in coaxial lines, accessibility to electronic quantum regimes at faster time scale remains out-of-reach.On the contrary, empowered by the advent of ultrafast lasers and progress in photonics and plasmonics, photo-conductive-switch technology can allow the generation of electromagnetic pulses with picosecond duration. The large bandwidth of these THz opto-electronic technologies could overcome the technical bottleneck faced by standard electronic equipment. While they have been widely developed for room temperature applications, demonstrations of their integration along-side a quantum architecture in a cryogenic environment are still limited. The realisation of such an experiment would unlock new research directions for studying the dynamics of solid-state electronic quantum devices.In this manuscript, we present the development of an experimental setup to generate picosecond voltage pulses in a cryogenic environment for flying qubit applications. A femtosecond laser generates pulses that are injected into optical fibres and integrated at low temperatures. Fabricated on the surface of Low Temperature grown GaAs (LT-GaAs), a photoconductive-switch is co-integrated to the quantum circuit formed on a high mobility two-Dimensional Electron Gas (2DEG). Owing to the extremely fast opto-electronic response of the LT-GaAs, the photo-conductive device converts optical pulses into voltage pulses with a duration as short as a few picoseconds. Using a THz CoPlanar Waveguide (CPW) circuit, the pulse is conveyed toward the 2DEG, where it is used as an ultra-short single-electron source.To perform pump-probe measurement and resolve the dynamic profile of such pulses, an original experimental setup, involving piezo-electric positioners and alignment protocols at low-temperatures, was implemented. As proof of concept, we first report the characterisation at 300 K of electronic pulses with 1.9 ps duration. In a second step, we cool down the system to 4 K and measure 2.3 ps wide pulses, thus expanding the proof of concept to cryogenic environments. Then, by integrating a 2DEG structure along-side the THz circuit, we were able to excite THz plasmons in a Fabry-Pérot cavity. The characteristic frequency of their fundamental mode was compared to an analytical model that revealed information about the carrier density of the electron gas under illumination. In parallel, extensive developments were carried out on the design of CPWs in order to minimise undesirable signal reflections as well as dispersion losses. Finally, with the prospect of measuring and controlling the propagation of picosecond electron pulse in quantum channels directly with ultrafast THz electrostatic gates, the fabrication of the next generation of devices was initiated. This work will pave the way for on-chip integration of picosecond voltage pulses into quantum nanoelectronics devices and ultrafast control of electronic flying qubits

Thesis (M.S. in Electrical Engineering)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 1990.<br>Thesis Advisor(s): Maruyama, X.K. Second Reader: Michael, S.N. "June 1990." Description based on title screen as viewed on March 24, 2010. DTIC Descriptor(s): Data Acquisition, Electronics, Facilities, Instrumentation, Integrated Systems, Noise (Electrical And Electromagnetic), Photons, Pulse Generators, Pulses, Radiation, Requirements, Scale, Transient Radiation Effects, Transients, Trees, Wafers, X Rays. DTIC Identifier(s): Transient radiation effects, Data acquisition, X ray apparatus, Electromagnetic pulses, Theses. Author(s) subject terms: EMP, IEMP, Flash X-Ray Instrumentation. Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-106). Also available in print.

Doutoramento em Ciência e Engenharia de Materiais<br>Devido à redução de dimensões e ao aumento da velocidade de processamento de dados nos dispositivos microeletrónicos baseados em semicondutores convencionais, estão a ser exploradas abordagens inovadoras envolvendo novos materiais tais como óxidos funcionais. Com o rápido desenvolvimento da indústria eletrónica existe uma maior necessidade de elevado desempenho, de elevada fiabilidade, e de componentes eletrónicos miniaturizados integrados em vários dispositivos. A fim de tornar os dispositivos amplamente acessíveis e de fácil utilização, requisitos adicionais devem ser considerados: o tamanho e peso desejados, o custo reduzido, o baixo consumo de energia e a portabilidade. Materiais funcionais de baixa dimensionalidade são muito promissores para cumprir essas exigências. Em particular, os ferroeléctricos de filmes finos bidimensionais (2D) têm recebido grande atenção devido à sua crescente utilização em memórias não voláteis, detectores piroelétricos, transdutores piezoeléctricos miniaturizados e dispositivos sintonizáveis de micro-ondas. A temperatura de cristalização é um parâmetro chave na preparação de ferroelétricos 2D. Muitos filmes finos ferroelétricos são cristalizados a temperaturas >600 °C. Esses valores estão acima da temperatura que certos elementos do dispositivo funcional podem suportar. Recentemente, este facto tornou-se ainda mais importante, devido às promissoras aplicações que podem ser consideradas caso os ferroeléctricos 2D sejam compatíveis com substratos poliméricos flexíveis de baixo custo e de baixo ponto de fusão. A compatibilidade de filmes finos ferróicos com estes últimos tipos de substratos é muito difícil, mas se conseguida pode ampliar acentuadamente a gama de aplicações para os mais recentes requisitos de eletrónica flexível e microeletrónica, onde dispositivos leves e baratos são exigidos. Neste trabalho, é implementada uma combinação da modificação da química de precursores e assistência por luz UV, com promoção simultânea da cristalização pela introdução de sementes nanocristalinas na solução precursora, para a fabricação de filmes finos ferróicos sem chumbo - Método de Precursores Fotossensíveis Semeados. Neste contexto, o principal objetivo deste trabalho foi fabricar filmes finos sem chumbo BiFeO3 (BFO) e Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (NBT) a baixas temperaturas (~300 °C) com uma resposta ferroelétrica competitiva. Além disso, a investigação do efeito do elétrodo-base sobre as propriedades dielétricas e ferroelétricas de filmes finos de BFO foi levada a cabo, e a comparação entre o comportamento de condensadores de BFO com base em IrO2, LaNiO3 (LNO) e Pt foi estabelecida. Adicionalmente, os efeitos dos vários eléctrodos sobre a microestrutura de filmes finos ferroeléctricos de BFO foram estudados por microscopia eletrónica de transmissão (TEM) de alta resolução. Primeiramente, filmes finos finos de perovesquite BFO e NBT foram preparados sobre substratos de silício revestidos com Pt, por deposição de solução química. Os filmes finos de BFO foram preparados a temperaturas na gama de 400-500 °C, a partir de soluções de precursores estequiométricas e com excesso de Bi. Os filmes de BFO cristalinos foram obtidos a 400 °C, o limite inferior de temperatura. Os filmes preparadas com excesso de Bi possuem curvas de histerese ferroelétrica mais definidas do que aqueles sem qualquer excesso, para filmes com espessuras ~150 nm. Uma vez que as densidades de corrente de fuga nos filmes finos diminuem com a diminuição da temperatura de processamento, a polarização de filmes finos de BFO preparados com excesso Bi e recozidos a 400 e 450 °C pode ser efetivamente comutada à temperatura ambiente. Obtiveram-se valores de polarização remanescente de Pr ~10 e ~60 μC/cm2 com campos coercivos de EC ~ 205 e 235 kV/cm para os filmes finos preparados a 400 e 450 °C, respectivamente. Os filmes finos de NBT foram preparados a temperaturas entre 400 e 650 °C. As propriedades estruturais e ferroelétricas dos filmes foram examinadas. A constante dieléctrica observada e as perdas dieléctricas a 100 kHz são 616 e 0,032, respectivamente, enquanto que a polarização remanescente observada e o campo coercivo são Pr ~ 24 μC/cm2 e EC ~ 215 kV/cm, respectivamente para o filme de NBT recozido a 650 °C. O recozimento térmico, em atmosfera de oxigénio após cada camada de revestimento, é eficaz na promoção da cristalização do filme na fase de perovesquite romboédrica a uma baixa temperatura de 400 °C. No entanto, obteve-se um ciclo P-E quase linear para os filmes NBT cristalizados a 400 °C devido à sua incipiente cristalinidade. Os filmes finos de BFO foram depositados numa gama de elétrodos para determinar o seu papel no controlo da formação de fases e da microestrutura. A cristalização em elétrodos de óxido seguiu a sequência: amorfa → Bi2O2(CO3) → perovesquite, enquanto que nos elétrodos de Pt cristalizaram diretamente a partir da fase amorfa. Os elétrodos de IrO2 promoveram a formação da fase de perovesquite à temperatura mais baixa e o LNO induziu adicionalmente o crescimento epitaxial local. O LNO tem a estrutura de perovesquite com o parâmetro de rede a = 0.384 nm, compatível com o de BFO, a = 0.396 nm, e assim a epitaxia é mais provável. Todas as composições exibiram precipitados inteiramente coerentes ricos em Fe dentro do interior de grão da matriz de perovesquite, enquanto que a incoerente segunda fase de Bi2Fe4O9 foi também observada nos limites de grão de BFO crescido em eléctrodos de Pt. Esta última pode ser observada por difração de raios X, bem como TEM, mas os precipitados coerentes foram observados apenas por TEM, principalmente evidenciados pelo seu contraste Z em imagens de campo escuro anular. Estes dados têm consequências acentuadas permitindo alargar a utilização de filmes de BFO sob campo aplicado, a aplicações como atuadores, sensores e aplicações de memória. Em seguida, os filmes finos de BFO foram depositados em substratos de Si com elétrodos distintos, como Pt, LNO e IrO2, para investigar o efeito do elétrodo-base sobre o crescimento e as propriedades elétricas do BFO. Todas os filmes de BFO são compostos por grãos colunares cujo tamanho é dependente do elétrodo-base. Não se observou textura para filmes de 320 nm de espessura fabricados em Pt orientado (111). Os filmes sobre eléctrodos de óxido, em particular sobre LNO são altamente orientados no plano (012). A grande polarização remanescente em BFO/Pt e BFO/IrO2 é atribuída à alta contribuição de corrente de fuga. Os filmes BFO de 400 nm de espessura em LNO possuem uma baixa densidade de corrente de fuga ~4 × 10-6 A/cm2, uma grande polarização remanescente de 50 μC/cm2 e um pequeno campo coercitivo de 180 kV/cm à temperatura ambiente. Demonstramos que as camadas de LNO aumentam a cristalinidade e a orientação de filmes finos BFO, o que se reflete nas suas propriedades funcionais. Este estudo mostra que, além da simples necessidade de filmes monofásicos, os elétrodos de óxido de metal têm um impacto relevante no desenvolvimento de filmes finos BFO de alta qualidade fabricados por métodos químicos de deposição de solução. Estes resultados têm uma implicação grande para a fabricação de dispositivos BFO baseados em filmes finos. Finalmente, provamos que é possível fabricar diretamente filmes finos de BFO sem chumbo em substratos flexíveis de poliamida com funcionalidades ferroelétricas e magnéticas (multiferroicidade) à temperatura ambiente. O nosso método inovador, baseado em soluções de Precursores Fotossensíveis e nanosementes cristalinas, foi usado com sucesso para diminuir a temperatura de cristalização de filmes finos de BFO até uma temperatura tão baixa quanto 300 °C, a mais baixa temperatura reportada até agora para a preparação de filmes finos multiferróicos de BFO. Apesar deste excepcionalmente baixo nível térmico, obtém-se uma polarização remanescente Pr de 2.8 μC/cm2 para os filmes semeados + UV, com um campo coercitivo EC de 300 kV/cm. A estratégia de síntese baseada na utilização de precursores fotossensíveis sementados pode ser transferida para qualquer outra família de óxidos metálicos funcionais.<br>With the dimensions reduction and data processing speeds increasing of conventional semiconductor based microelectronic devices, innovative approaches involving new materials such as functional oxides are being explored. With the rapid development of the electronics industry there is a need for high performance, high reliability and miniaturized electronic components integrated into various devices. In order to make the devices user friendly and widely accessible, additional requirements should be considered: the desired size and weight, low cost, low power consumption, and portability in addition to high levels of functionality. Low dimensional functional materials hold great promises to fulfil those requirements. In particular, two-dimensional (2D) thin film ferroelectrics have received wide attention because of their growing use as non-volatile memories, pyroelectric detectors, miniaturized piezoelectric transducers and tunable microwave devices. Crystallization temperature is a key parameter in preparation of 2D-ferroelectrics. Many ferroelectric thin films are crystallized at temperatures >600 °C. This is above the temperature that certain elements of the functional device can withstand. Recently it became even more important due to promising applications that can be envisaged if 2D-ferroelectrics will be compatible with low cost, low melting temperature flexible polymeric substrates. The compatibility of ferroic thin films with those last types of substrates can markedly widen the range of applications towards the most recent requirements of flexible electronics and microelectronics, where lightweight and cheap devices are demanded. In this work, a combination of the modification of precursor chemistry and the assistance of UV-light, with simultaneous promotion of crystallization by introducing nanocrystalline seeds in the precursor solution, is implemented to fabricate lead-free ferroic thin films - Seeded Photosensitive Precursor Method. Within this context, the main objective of this work was to fabricate lead-free BiFeO3 (BFO) and Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (NBT) thin films with a competitive ferroelectric response at low temperatures. Moreover, investigations of the effect of the bottom electrode on the dielectric and ferroelectric properties of BFO thin films was conducted and the comparison between the behavior of IrO2, LaNiO3 (LNO) and Pt based BFO capacitors established. Additionally, the effects of these various bottom electrodes on the microstructure of BiFeO3 ferroelectric films was studied by high-resolution TEM. Firstly, BFO and NBT perovskite thin films were prepared on Pt-coated silicon substrates by chemical solution deposition. BFO was prepared at temperatures in the range 400-500 °C, and from stoichiometric and Bi excess precursor solutions. Crystalline BFO films were obtained at the lowest temperature limit of 400 °C. The films prepared with Bi excess possess more defined ferroelectric hysteresis loops than those without any excess; for films with thicknesses ~150 nm. As the leakage current densities in the films decrease with decreasing the processing temperature, polarization of BFO films prepared with Bi excess and annealed at 400 and 450 °C can be effectively switched at room temperature. Remanent polarization values of Pr ~ 10 and ~60 μC/cm2 with coercive fields of EC ~ 205 and 235 kV/cm were obtained for the films prepared at 400 and 450 °C, respectively. NBT thin films were prepared at temperatures from 400 to 650 °C. Structural and ferroelectric properties of the films were examined. The observed dielectric constant and dielectric losses at 100 kHz are 616 and 0.032, respectively, while the observed remanent polarization and coercive field are Pr ~ 24 μC/cm2 and EC ~ 215 kV/cm, respectively for the NBT film annealed at 650 °C. Thermal annealing in an oxygen atmosphere after each layer of coating is effective in promoting crystallization of the film into rhombohedral perovskite phase at a low temperature of 400 °C. However, almost linear, P-E loop was obtained for those NBT films crystallized at 400 °C due to incipient crystallinity. BFO thin films were grown on a range of electrodes to determine their role in controlling phase formation and microstructure. The crystallization on oxide electrodes followed the sequence: amorphous → Bi2O2(CO3) → perovskite, while those on Pt crystallized directly from the amorphous phase. IrO2 electrodes promoted perovskite phase formation at the lowest temperature and LaNiO3 additionally induced local epitaxial growth. LNO has the perovskite structure with lattice parameter a = 0.384 nm, compatible with that of BFO, a = 0.396 nm and thus epitaxy is more likely. It was observed for the first time that all compositions exhibited fully coherent Fe-rich precipitates within the grain interior of the perovskite matrix, whereas incoherent Bi2Fe4O9 second phase was also observed at the grain boundaries of BFO grown on Pt electrodes. The latter could be observed by X-ray diffraction as well as transmission electron microscopy (TEM) but coherent precipitates were only observed by TEM, principally evidenced by their Z contrast in annular dark field images. These data have pronounced consequences for the extended use of BFO films under applied field for actuator, sensor and memory applications. Then, BFO thin films were deposited on Si-based substrates with distinct electrodes, such as Pt, LNO, and IrO2, in order to investigate the effect of bottom electrode on the growth and electrical properties of BFO. All BFO films are composed of columnar grains which size is dependent on the bottom electrode. No texture was observed for 320 nm thick films fabricated on (111) oriented Pt. Films on oxide electrodes, in particular on LNO are highly (012) oriented. The large remanent polarization in BFO/Pt and BFO/IrO2 is attributed to the high leakage current contribution. 400 nm thick BFO films on LNO possess a low leakage current density ~4 × 10-6 A/cm2, a large remanent polarization of 50 μC/cm2 and a small coercive field of 180 kV/cm at room temperature. We demonstrate that LNO layers enhance the crystallinity and orientation of BFO thin films, which is reflected in their functional properties. This study shows that besides the simple need of monophasic films metal oxide electrodes have a relevant impact on the development of high quality BFO thin films fabricated by chemical solution deposition methods. These results have a broad implication for the fabrication of BFO thin film based devices. Finally, we prove that it is possible to directly fabricate lead-free BFO thin films on flexible polyamide substrates with ferroelectric and magnetic functionalites (multiferroicity) at room temperature. Our own proprietary novel solution-based Seeded Photosensitive Precursor Method was successfully used to decrease the crystallization temperature of BFO thin films down to a temperature as low as 300 °C, the lowest reported up to now for the preparation of multiferroic BFO thin films. Despite this exceptionally low thermal budget a remanent polarization Pr of 2.8 μC/cm2 is obtained for the seeded + UV films, with a coercive field EC of 300 kV/cm. The synthesis strategy based on the use of seeded photosensitive precursors can be transferred to any family of functional metal oxide.

L'observation du milieu interstellaire est très importante aux fréquences mm / (sub) mm / Thz pour comprendre comment se forment les étoiles et les planètes. De telles observations dépendent des récepteurs hétérodynes. Ces instruments atteignent une résolution spectrale très élevée en convertissant un signal haute fréquence à une fréquence plus basse. Dans un récepteur hétérodyne, le signal collecté est superposé sur un signal artificiel, bien connu, monochromatique, généré par l'oscillateur local (OL), donc ce signal artificiel est plus-ou-moins la fréquence du signal du ciel. Le mélangeur produit le signal de la fréquence du battement. Cette fréquence est équivalente à la différence entre le OL et la fréquence du signal du ciel. Ainsi, le signal du ciel est traduit à une fréquence plus basse, pour qu'il soit facile à amplifier et détecter. Habituellement, les récepteurs hétérodynes ont seulement un pixel spatial avec de nombreux canaux en fréquences. Notre objectif est de développer des réseaux de centaines de pixels. Pour faire cela, certains composants de l'hétérodyne doivent être repensés radicalement, tels que l'antenne de réception et le diviseur de faisceau OL. En effet, l'antenne réceptrice est généralement constituée d'une antenne à double fentes sur une lentille, ou d'une antenne cornet. Par contre, ces antennes ne sont pas les meilleurs choix pour des réseaux de nombreux pixels car elles doivent être usinées et montées individuellement. Au lieu de cela, il est commode de développer des structures planaires qui peuvent être facilement produites toutes ensembles. En particulier, nous avons conçu et simulé des réseaux d'antennes patch, de réseaux de transmission, et de plaques de zone. Le réseau d'antennes patch consiste d'un réseau de patchs métalliques reliés par une ligne microruban et séparés du plan de masse par un substrat diélectrique. Cette configuration profite du facteur du réseau pour réduire la largeur de faisceau du signal collecté. Cependant, nos simulations nous montrent que la bande RF des réseaux d'antennes patch est étroite. Pour cette raison, nous avons analysé la possibilité d'utiliser une autre solution : le réseau de transmission. C'est un réseau de plusieurs cellules qui déphase une onde afin de transformer son front de phase de forme planaire en forme sphérique. Le but de la matrice de transmission est de focaliser le faisceau collecté vers une antenne et mélangeur à double fentes. La thés démontre qu'un effet de focalisation satisfaisant est atteint sur une ligne. Nous avons fabriqué un tel réseau de transmission et l'avons testé en laboratoire. En raison des petites dimensions de quelques millimètres, ces tests sont difficiles à réaliser. Au sein de l'erreur de mesure, la conception et les simulations sont cohérentes. Une troisième option (d'une lentille planaire) a été étudiée dans la thèse : la plaque de zone. C'est un type particulier de réseau de transmission qui ne présente que deux déphasages de 0 ° et 180 °. Le plaque de zone focalise bien, mais est peu efficace. La dernière partie de la thèse introduit un type de diviseur de faisceau particulier qui permet une division du faisceau du signal OL vers un réseau de quatre mélangeurs très serrés. Diviser le faisceau avec des angles suffisamment petits est très difficile avec les réseaux de Fourier et Dammann classiques. Pour cette raison la méthode que nous avons proposée pour concevoir un tel diviseur est très novatrice. En effet, il permet la formation de motifs de faisceaux de forme arbitraire, qui ne sont pas limités par les ordres de diffraction. Les simulations montrent des efficacités allant jusqu'à 80% qui sont très bonnes en comparaison avec les réseaux classiques. En résumé, dans cette thèse, j'ai essayé plusieurs moyens radicalement différents pour simplifier les récepteurs hétérodynes et ouvrir la voie aux grandes matrices hétérodynes avec des centaines de pixels<br>The observation of the interstellar medium is very important at mm/(sub)mm/THz frequencies to understand how stars and planets form. Generally such observations rely on heterodyne receivers. These are instruments that achieve very high spectral resolution by down converting a high frequency signal towards a lower frequency one. In a heterodyne receiver the incoming signal is superimposed onto an artificial, well-known, monochromatic signal generated by the local oscillator (LO), chosen to be close to the frequency of the sky signal. The mixer produces the beat frequency signal. It has a frequency equivalent to the difference between the LO and sky signal frequency. Thus the sky signal is translated to a lower frequency, and it is easier to amplify and detect. Usually heterodyne receivers have only one spatial pixel with many frequency channels. Some prototypes have been realized recently with few pixels. Our objective is to develop arrays of hundreds of pixels. In order to do that, some components which compose the heterodyne receiver must be radically rethought, such as the receiving antenna and the LO beam divider.Indeed the receiving antenna generally consists of a double slot antenna on a lens, or a horn antenna. Such antennas are not the best choice for arrays of many pixels since they have to be machined and mounted individually. Instead it is convenient to develop planar structures which can be easily produced in bulk in a single process. In particular we designed and simulated arrays of patch antennas, transmit-arrays and zone plates. The array of patch antennas consists of an array of metallic patches connected via a microstrip line and separated from the ground plane by a dielectric substrate. This configuration takes advantage of the array factor to reduce the beamwidth of the incoming signal in place of the lens. However our simulations showed the array of patch antennas to be quite narrowband for a general purpose application, and quite difficult to realize. For this reason we also analyzed the possibility to use another solution such as the transmit-array. It is an array of several cells which provide a certain phase shift to an incoming wave in order to transform its phase front from planar to spherical. The purpose of the transmit-array is to focus the incoming beam towards a double slot antenna and a mixer placed below it. The simulations showed that a good focusing effect can be reached on a line. We fabricated such a transmit-array and tested it in the laboratory. Because of the small dimensions of a few millimeters these tests are difficult to carry out. Within the measurement error design and simulations are consistent. A third option of a planar lens was studied in the thesis: the zone plate. This is a particular kind of transmit-array which presents only two phase shift of 0° and 180°. The zone plates focus well, but are unfortunately not very efficient.The final part of the thesis introduces a particular kind of beam divider which allows beam splitting of the LO signal towards an array of four very closely packed mixers. To split the beam with such small relative angles is very difficult with the classical Fourier and Dammann grating, for this reason the method we proposed to design such a beam divider is very innovative. Indeed it allows the forming of arbitrary shaped beam patterns, which are not limited by the diffraction orders. Simulations show efficiencies up to 80% which are very good in comparison with classical gratings.In summary in this thesis I have tried several radically different approaches to simplify heterodyne receivers and made a first step towards for large heterodyne arrays with hundreds of pixels

This thesis presents the RF and mechanical design of a metal-to-metal contact RF MEMS switch. Metal-to-metal contact RF MEMS switches are especially preferred in low frequency bands where capacitive switches suffer from isolation due to the limited reactance. Frequency band of operation of the designed switch is from DC to beyond X-band. Measured insertion loss of the structure is less than 0.2 dB, return loss is better than 30 dB, and isolation is better than 20 dB up to 20 GHz. Isolation is greater than 25 dB below 10 GHz. Hence, for wideband applications, this switch offers very low loss and high isolation. Time domain measurement is necessary for the investigation of the dynamic behavior of the devices, determination of the &lsquo<br>pull in&rsquo<br>and &lsquo<br>pull out&rsquo<br>voltages of the membranes, switching time and power handling of the devices. Also, failure and degradation of the switches can be monitored using the time domain setup. For these purposes a time domain setup is constructed. Moreover, failure mechanisms of the RF MEMS devices are investigated and a power electronic circuitry is constructed for the biasing of RF MEMS switches. Advantage of the biasing circuitry over the direct DC biasing is the multi-shape, high voltage output waveform capability. Lifetimes of the RF MEMS devices are investigated under different bias configurations. Finally, for measurement of complicated RF MEMS structures composed of large number of switches, a bias waveform distribution network is constructed where conventional systems are not adequate because of the high voltage levels. By this way, the necessary instrumentation is completed for controlling a large scale RF MEMS system.

This thesis explores contrasting perspectives on what constitutes 'good governance' for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research. It asks whether there are systematic differences between perspectives of UK and US policy actors and what kinds of patterns are discernible. Biomedical technologies like hESCs generate complex interactions between public values, institutional interests, societal expectations and technological uncertainties. These pose serious governance challenges. Under such conditions, diverse aspects and implications of risk, ambiguity and uncertainty come into focus. We need appraisal processes that address these issues by combining quantitative and qualitative dimensions to 'open up' divergent governance framings. The research framework employed here uses and further develops one such elicitation and analysis process called Multicriteria Mapping (MCM). MCM combines qualitative sensitivity with quantitative precision, while also aiding transparency and reflexivity in documenting and understanding diverse stakeholder perspectives. We therefore address 'good' governance both as an analytical subject and as a rationale for testing a novel form of appraisal. The analysis discerns systematic patterns in perspectives on good governance across national contexts and between stakeholders, identifying several points of convergence and divergence. We examine underlying rationales behind individual perspectives, obtaining empirical support for recent theoretical arguments concerning technology appraisal and democratic deliberation. We find national policy literatures make greater use of moral and ethical language to frame governance challenges, by comparison with stakeholders' emphasis on institutional and socio-political factors. This suggests a more critical and cautious stance is needed towards the legitimatory language of 'bioethics' in policy making. Finally, we explore some of the normative implications for governance of culturally sensitive and scientifically uncertain issues. By providing reflexive explanations of factors influencing perspectives of policy actors, this thesis makes a number of interlinked theoretical, methodological, empirical and normative contributions to understanding of how good governance of biomedical technologies is and should be conducted.

In this thesis, a prototype ECG monitor was developed that is integrated into an elastic shirt and takes a 3-lead ECG for over 5 days. The high-quality measurements can be used to identify markers indicative of various detrimental heart conditions. Measurements recorded by the device are encrypted and stored onto a micro-SD card. Current Holter monitors are expensive and have functional lives less than 48 hours; however, extended duration monitoring has been proven more useful in diagnosis. The device designed demonstrates that ECG measurements can be taken over longer durations without sacrificing quality, comfort, or device cost.

Thesis (M.S.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering, 2008.<br>Includes bibliographical references.

A stacked microchannel heat sink was developed to provide efficient cooling for microelectronics devices at a relatively low pressure drop while maintaining chip temperature uniformity. Microfabrication techniques were employed to fabricate the stacked microchannel structure, and experiments were conducted to study its thermal performance. A total thermal resistance of less than 0.1 K/W was demonstrated for both counter flow and parallel flow configurations. The effects of flow direction and interlayer flow rate ratio were investigated. It was found that for the low flow rate range the parallel flow arrangement results in a better overall thermal performance than the counter flow arrangement; whereas, for the large flow rate range, the total thermal resistances for both the counter flow and parallel flow configurations are indistinguishable. On the other hand, the counter flow arrangement provides better temperature uniformity for the entire flow rate range tested. The effects of localized heating on the overall thermal performance were examined by selectively applying electrical power to the heaters. Numerical simulations were conducted to study the conjugate heat transfer inside the stacked microchannels. Negative heat flux conditions were found near the outlets of the microchannels for the counter flow arrangement. This is particularly evident for small flow rates. The numerical results clearly explain why the total thermal resistance for counter flow arrangement is larger than that for the parallel flow at low flow rates. In addition, laminar flow inside the microchannels were characterized using Micro-PIV techniques. Microchannels of different width were fabricated in silicon, the smallest channel measuring 34 mm in width. Measurements were conducted at various channel depths. Measured velocity profiles at these depths were found to be in reasonable agreement with laminar flow theory. Micro-PIV measurement found that the maximum velocity is shifted significantly towards the top of the microchannels due to the sidewall slope, a common issue faced with DRIE etching. Numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the effects of the sidewall slope on the flow and heat transfer. The results show that the effects of large sidewall slope on heat transfer are significant; whereas, the effects on pressure drop are not as pronounced.

Health information technology (HIT) has been identified as the fundamental driver to streamline the healthcare delivery processes to improve care quality and reduce operational costs. Of the many facets of HIT is Clinical Decision Support (CDS) which provides the physician with patient-specific inferences, intelligently filtered and organized, at appropriate times. This research has been conducted to develop an agile solution to Clinical Decision Support at the point of care in a healthcare setting as a potential solution to the challenges of interoperability and the complexity of possible solutions. The capabilities of Business Process Management (BPM) and Workflow Management systems are leveraged to support a Service Oriented Architecture development approach for ensuring evidence based medical practice. The aim of this study is to present an architecture solution that is based on SOA principles and embeds clinical guidelines within a healthcare setting. Since the solution is designed to implement real life healthcare scenarios, it essentially supports evidence-based clinical guidelines that are liable to change over a period of time. The thesis is divided into four parts. The first part consists of an Introduction to the study and a background to existing approaches for development and integration of Clinical Decision Support Systems. The second part focuses on the development of a Clinical Decision Support Framework based on Service Oriented Architecture. The CDS Framework is composed of standards based open source technologies including JBoss SwitchYard (enterprise service bus), rule-based CDS enabled by JBoss Drools, process modelling using Business Process Modelling and Notation. To ensure interoperability among various components, healthcare standards by HL7 and OMG are implemented. The third part provides implementation of this CDS Framework in healthcare scenarios. Two scenarios are concerned with the medical practice for diagnosis and early intervention (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Lung Cancer), one case study for Genetic data enablement of CDS systems (New born screening for Cystic Fibrosis) and the last case study is about using BPM techniques for managing healthcare organizational perspectives including human interaction with automated clinical workflows. The last part concludes the research with contributions in design and architecture of CDS systems. This thesis has primarily adopted the Design Science Research Methodology for Information Systems. Additionally, Business Process Management Life Cycle, Agile Business Rules Development methodology and Pattern-Based Cycle for E-Workflow Design for individual case studies are used. Using evidence-based clinical guidelines published by UK's National Institute of Health and Care Excellence, the integration of latest research in clinical practice has been employed in the automated workflows. The case studies implemented using the CDS Framework are evaluated against implementation requirements, conformance to SOA principles and response time using load testing strategy. For a healthcare organization to achieve its strategic goals in administrative and clinical practice, this research has provided a standards based integration solution in the field of clinical decision support. A SOA based CDS can serve as a potential solution to complexities in IT interventions as the core data and business logic functions are loosely coupled from the presentation. Additionally, the results of this this research can serve as an exemplar for other industrial domains requiring rapid response to evolving business processes.

Optoelectronic devices based on organic semiconductors have been the focus of increasing research over the past two decades. While many of the potential organic electronic concepts (solar cells, transistors, detectors etc.) are still in their infancy stage, organic light-emitting diodes have gained commercial acceptance for their potential in high resolution displays and solid-state lighting. However, in order for these devices to reach their full potential significant advances need to make to address their fundamental limitations, specifically: device life-time, thin-film encapsulation and scalability to a high volume manufacturing setting. The work presented in this thesis demonstrates new strategies to design and manufacture high-performance OLEDs for next generation electronics. In the first part, high-performance OLEDS using a simple three-layer organic semiconductor device structure are demonstrated. These devices utilize two novel materials (Poly-TriCZ and mCPSOB) to achieve efficient charge balance and exciton confinement in the emissive region of the device. Moreover, the electrical properties of these materials allow them to serve as a suitable ‘universal’ material combination to yield high-performance OLEDs with high-energy phosphors (i.e. blue- or deep-blue-emitting dopants). To demonstrate this feature, green- and blue-emitting OLED results are provided that define the state-of-the-art for phosphorescent OLEDs. These results are then extended to show high-performance with a new set of high-efficiency blue- and green-emitting dopants based on thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF), which also proceed to define the state-of-the-art in electroluminescence from TADF. The second part of this thesis continues this work and extends the results to a new class of polymeric substrates, called shape memory polymers (SMPs). SMPs provide a new alternative to flexible, polymeric substrates due to their unique mechanical properties. When an external stimuli is applied to these materials (heat), they have the ability to form a temporary phase that has a Young’s modulus orders of magnitude lower than its original state. The material can then be re- shaped, deformed or conform to any object until the stimuli is removed, at which point the Young’s modulus returns to its original state and the temporary geometric configuration is retained. Re-applying the stimulus will trigger a response in its molecular network, which induces a recovery of its original shape. By using mCPSOB in an inverted top-emitting OLED architecture, high performance green-emitting OLEDs are demonstrated on SMP substrates that define the state-of-the-art in performance for deformable light-emitting devices. The combination of the unique properties of SMP substrates with the light-emitting properties of OLEDs pave to the way for new class of applications, including conformable smart skin devices, minimally invasive biomedical devices, and flexible lighting/display technologies.

Dans le cadre de ce memoire nous avons etudie sur le plan theorique l'influence de la tension acceleratrice des electrons incidents sur les dimensions des traces obtenus. En s'appuyant sur des resultats obtenus anterieurement nous avons simule pour une methode de monte-carlo, les trajectoires des particules incidents. Nous avons pu ainsi localiser l'energie deposee par les electrons incidents les electrons retrodiffuses par le substrat et les electrons secondaires. L'ensemble des resultats montre l'interet theorique presente par l'emploi de tensions plus elevees (100 kev) que celles habituellement utilisees en microlithographie (20 a 50 kev). Afin de preciser les differents mecanismes intervenant dans la modification de la resine nous avons etudie a l'aide d'un analyseur de pertes d'energie des electrons l'evolution au cours de l'irradiation du spectre obtenu. Les performances obtenues sont illustrees par differentes gravures representant le trace de motifs realises dans une couche de pmma de 0,5 micron d'epaisseur, avec des lignes de 0,4 micron de large

Conception, réalisation et mise en Suvre d'une plateforme d'instrumentation thermique pour des applications microfluidiques. Le concept de laboratoire sur puce ou lab-on-chip est basé sur le fait que l'on peut remplacer plusieurs appareils d'analyse nécessitant de l'entretien et des opérateurs par un système portable et autonome qui contient toutes les fonctions nécessaires afin de réaliser les opérations de laboratoire. Ce concept peut aussi bien s'appliquer à des taches pour l'industrie chimique, biologique ou encore médicale. Dans notre cas il s'agit de contrôler la température dans une canalisation microfluidique, et s'il y a besoin, de pouvoir influer sur cette température grâce à des actionneurs thermiques. La thèse a donc consisté à réaliser une plateforme d'instrumentation thermique pour ces applications. Nous avons développé un procédé de fabrication de capteurs thermiques simple et robuste : l'élément sensible de base est une diode PN de type zener, réalisée dans un film de polysilicium, qui présente la particularité d'être un composant dual (fonctionnement en capteur ou actionneur thermique selon la polarisation). La caractérisation électrique a permis de mettre en avant des sensibilités thermiques de.-22 mV/°C à -220 mV/°C pour les éléments les plus performants. La capacité de ces dispositifs à mesurer la température dans un environnement microfluidique a été démontrée. La dernière phase a concerné le développement d'une carte électronique dédiée permettant une mesure multiplexée de la température pour l'ensemble des capteurs (16 capteurs par plateforme) et le transfert des données sur PC pour effectuer le post traitement.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 29-November 02, 1990 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada<br>Instrumentation for taking dynamic in-bore measurements during high accelerations typically has been limited to accelerations under 20,000 g’s. In munition development and testing, there is a need for telemetry instrumentation that can relay dynamic performance data at 100,000 g’s. This paper describes the development and testing of a stable, regulated, telemetry transmitter that has been successfully tested to 67,400 g’s.

Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse sont consacrés à l'investigation du fonctionnement des technologies bipolaires, et plus particulièrement des technologies BiCMOS SiGe, pour une utilisation à température cryogénique. Un état de l'art sur les transistors bipolaires et les bruits électroniques que l'on rencontre sur ce genre de technologie sont donnés avec une approche orientée vers les basses températures. Ces rappels permettent d'aborder les mesures, des paramètres basse fréquence et du bruit, réalisées sur des transistors bipolaires silicium et sur deux technologies SiGe à 300 K, 77 K et 4.2 K. Il est ensuite présenté deux réalisations d'ASIC cryogénique en technologie standard BiCMOS SiGe. La première est un amplificateur bas bruit (1 nV/sqrtHz) et large bande (1 GHz) fonctionnant à 77 K. Il est destiné à la caractérisation de bolomètres supraconducteurs YBaCuO à électrons chauds. La seconde réalisation est un circuit de lecture et de multiplexage de matrice de SQUID. Il est, en particulier, présenté le développement, la réalisation et le test d'un amplificateur ultra bas bruit (0.2 nV/sqrtHz) avec deux entrées multiplexées fonctionnant à 4.2 K.

Extreme environments pose major obstacles for electronics in the form of extremely wide temperature ranges and hazardous radiation. The most common mitigation procedures involve extensive shielding and temperature control or complete displacement from the environment with high costs in weight, power, volume, and performance. There has been a shift away from these solutions and towards distributed, in-environment electronic systems. However, for this methodology to be viable, the requirements of heavy radiation shielding and temperature control have to be lessened or eliminated. This work gained new understanding of the best practices in analog circuit design for extreme environments. Major accomplishments included the over-temperature -180 C to +120 C and radiation validation of the SiGe Remote Electronics Unit, a first of its kind, 16 channel, sensor interface for unshielded operation in the Lunar environment, the design of two wide-temperature (-180 C to +120 C), total-ionizing-dose hardened, wireline transceivers for the Lunar environment, the low-frequency-noise characterization of a second-generation BiCMOS process from 300 K down to 90 K, the explanation of the physical mechanisms behind the single-event transient response of cascode structures in a 45 nm, SOI, radio-frequency, CMOS technology, the analysis of the single-event transient response of differential structures in a 32 nm, SOI, RF, CMOS technology, and the prediction of scaling trends of single-event effects in SOI CMOS technologies.

<p>In modern medicine, the measurement of electrophysiological signals play a key role in health monitoring and diagnostics. Electrical activity originating from our nerve and muscle cells conveys real-time information about our current health state. The two most common and actively used techniques for measuring such signals are electrocardiography (ECG) and electroencephalography (EEG).</p><p>These signals are very weak, reaching from a few millivolts down to tens of microvolts in amplitude, and have the majority of the power located at very low frequencies, from below 1 Hz up to 40 Hz. These characteristics sets very tough requirements on the electrical circuit designs used to measure them. Usually, measurement is performed by attaching electrodes with direct contact to the skin using an adhesive, conductive gel to fixate them. This method requires a clinical environment and is time consuming, tedious and may cause the patient discomfort.</p><p>This thesis investigates another method for such measurements; by using a non-contact, capacitively coupled sensor, many of these shortcomings can be overcome. While this method relieves some problems, it also introduces several design difficulties such as: circuit noise, extremely high input impedance and interference. A capacitively coupled sensor was created using the bottom layer of a printed circuit board (PCB) as a capacitor plate and placing it against the signal source, that acts as the opposite capacitor plate. The PCB solder mask layer and any air in between the two acts as the insulator to create a full capacitor. The signal picked up by this sensor was then amplified by 60 dB with a high input impedance amplifier circuit and further conditioned through filtering.</p><p>Two measurements were made of the same circuit, but with different input impedances; one with 10 MΩ and one with 10 GΩ input impedance. Additional filtering was designed to combat interference from the main power lines at 50 Hz and 150 Hz that was discovered during initial measurements. The circuits were characterized with their transfer functions, and the ability to amplify a very low-level, low frequency input signal. The results of these measurements show that high input impedance is of critical importance for the functionality of the sensor and that an input impedance of 10 GΩ is sufficient to produce a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 9.7 dB after digital filtering with an input signal of 25 μV at 10 Hz.</p>

Les travaux présentés synthétisent l'activité de Recherche réalisée, depuis 1998, au Laboratoire Ultrasons Signaux et Instrumentation FRE2448 CNRS de l'Université François-Rabelais. Cette recherche expérimentale et théorique vise, en vue d'une imagerie sub-lambda, à exploiter le cadre de l'acoustique non linéaire ultrasonore pour progresser dans l'instrumentation électronique et dans la modélisation acoustique de l'analyse, de l'évaluation et du contrôle non destructif (END/CND) de milieux complexes dégradés ou fissurés issus de l'industrie aéronautique. La modélisation mécanique multi-échelles des matériaux dégradés est implémentée via l'introduction de lois de comportement non linéaires non classiques (approche hystérétique phénoménologique de type Preisach-Mayergoyz) et est étendue au cas 3D par le formalisme de Kelvin. Une analyse des symétries des équations générales de propagation acoustique (Burgers, KZ, équation hystérétique), utilisant le formalisme des groupes de Lie, a permis de mettre en place les bases d'une analyse systémique exploitant les invariants extraits, entre autres, à partir des conditions a priori d'excitation. Les propriétés d'invariance par retournement temporel et par réciprocité constituent l'ossature des techniques de localisation des nonlinéarités dans les milieux complexes. Un traitement du signal automatisé et synchronisé permet cette focalisation acoustique. En appliquant des méthodes de codage d'excitations, l'extraction de la nonlinéarité est effectuée sur le signal vibratoire mesuré par interférométrie laser. Des simulations numériques de type pseudo-spectrales préservant la description temporelle valident les concepts associés à ces techniques de localisation. Deux dispositifs expérimentaux de spectroscopie non linéaire élastique (NEWS) basés sur l'interaction paramétrique d'ondes acoustiques ont été réalisés afin de caractériser la nonlinéarité de milieux solides et liquides. Ces dispositifs permettent des caractérisations dites globales et locales des propriétés non linéaires des milieux. L'expérimentation globale présente l'avantage d'être associée à une métrologie fine, basée sur un principe d'auto-réciprocité et permet un étalonnage du paramètre non linéaire. L'objectif en terme d'imagerie de localisation de la nonlinéarité a nécessité la mise en ?uvre d'une extension de cette méthode par l'adjonction d'un processus de retournement temporel (TR) permettant la focalisation ultrasonore des ondes, et la création d'expérimentations innovantes NEWS-TR et TR-NEWS.

Orientador: Hugo Enrique Hernadez Figueroa<br>Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica e de Computação<br>Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-25T04:08:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Baron_RafaelAntonio_M.pdf: 2527156 bytes, checksum: b044c223ca1a051a13e9264f599fe8c2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014<br>Resumo: Atualmente está em fase de projeto o novo acelerador de elétrons do Laboratório Nacional de Luz Síncrotron (LNLS). Este acelerador de partículas, denominado Sirius, é constituído por diversos sistemas de instrumentação, sendo um deles de particular interesse para o diagnóstico de posição do feixe de elétrons estocado no acelerador. Este sistema, denominado monitor de posição de feixe, é constituído por sua vez por outros subsistemas, dentre os quais uma eletrônica de RF, dedicado a fazer processamento analógico de sinais de Rádio Frequência advindos de sensores que interagem eletromagneticamente com o feixe de elétrons. Esta eletrônica de RF deve condicionar o sinal, fornecendo ganho, filtragem, linearidade e estabilidade necessárias na faixa de operação de potências de entrada para que o sinal possa ser digitalizado. Este trabalho tem por objetivo descrever a respeito do desenvolvimento desta eletrônica, abarcando o projeto do circuito de RF de alta linearidade e alta estabilidade, implementação em placa de circuito impresso e testes em bancada e no acelerador de elétrons UVX, do LNLS<br>Abstract: The new electron accelerator of the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS) is being designed to provide users with more brilliant photon beams. This particle accelerator, called Sirius, is composed of hundreds of instrumentation systems that are responsible for the machine operation. The Beam Position Monitor System is dedicated to monitor the position of the electron beam stored inside the vacuum chamber of the machine. It is composed by a subsystem called RF Front-End, dedicated to the analog processing of the beam signals that is originated by the interaction between the ultra-relativistic electromagnetic field of the electron beam and sensors specially designed for it. The RF Front-End electronics have been designed to provide filtering and gain with high linearity and stability along all the input power range. This work presents the design of the electronics, its implementation in printed-circuit board and tests results that have been performed in the laboratory and with a real beam signal<br>Mestrado<br>Telecomunicações e Telemática<br>Mestre em Engenharia Elétrica

The exploitation of nonlinear dynamics behavior in ferroelectric material toward the realization of innovative transducers for the detection of weak and low frequency electric fields is the focus of this thesis. A nonlinear dynamical system based on ferroelectric capacitors coupled into a unidirectional ring circuit is considered with particular interest for developing novel electric field sensors. The focused approach is based on the exploitation of circuits made up by the ring connection of an odd number of elements containing a ferroelectric capacitor, which under particular conditions exhibits an oscillating regime of behavior. For such a device a weak, external, target electric field interacts with the system thus inducing perturbation of the polarization of the ferroelectric material; this, the target signal can be indirectly detected and quantified via its effect on the system response. The conceived devices exploit the synergetic use of bi-stable ferroelectric materials, micromachining technologies that allow us to address charge density amplification, and implement novel sensing strategies based on coupling non-linear elemental cells. Advanced simulation tools have been used for modeling a system including electronic components and non linear elements as the conceived micro-capacitors. Moreover, Finite Element Analysis (FEM) has allowed us to steer the capacitor electrodes design toward optimal geometries and to improve the knowledge of effects of the external target E-field on the electric potential acting on the ferroelectric material. An experimental characterization of the whole circuit, including three cells coupled in a ring configuration has also been carried out.

Orientador: Elnatan Chagas Ferreira<br>Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica e de Computação<br>Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-20T12:19:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dante_Alex_M.pdf: 3529877 bytes, checksum: 4dd1be9e526e3698ffe5df07e12d5b62 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012<br>Resumo: Sensores a fibra óptica utilizando grades de Bragg em fibra (fiber Bragg grating - FBG) estão se tornando cada dia mais importantes, dada a quantidade de aplicações nas quais vêm sendo empregados. Algumas das principais características dos sensores a FBG são: imunidade à interferência eletromagnética (EMI), isolamento elétrico, baixo peso, flexibilidade, e transmissão de informações a longa distância. Eles estão sendo empregados na medida de temperatura, deformação, carga, tensão mecânica e vibração. Estão presentes também em estruturas inteligentes, onde sensores a FBG distribuídos são incorporados à estrutura, permitindo a monitoração em tempo real das condições estruturais de pontes, trilhos ferroviários e aviões. Este trabalho apresenta uma nova técnica de caracterização de FBGs utilizando deconvolução. Nesta técnica, utiliza-se uma FBG sintonizável, cujo perfil de reflexão é bem conhecido, para caracterização de outra FBG, cujo perfil é inicialmente desconhecido. Utilizando placas eletrônicas com componentes de baixo custo, e um software desenvolvido em LabVIEW®, no qual implementamos a deconvolução dos perfis das FBGs, essa técnica permite o levantamento do perfil de reflexão e outros parâmetros, como a largura espectral FWHM (do inglês Full Width at Half Maximum) e o comprimento de onda de Bragg 'lâmbda'B, de uma FBG. Os resultados obtidos tornaram possível a validação da técnica proposta e permitem concluir que ela é robusta e, com refinamentos matemáticos que podem ser implementados no processo de deconvolução, permite a construção de um caracterizador de FBGs preciso e de custo bem inferior a equipamentos disponíveis comercialmente<br>Abstract: Optical fiber sensors using fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) are becoming increasingly important, given the amount of applications in which they are being used. Some of the most important characteristics of FBGs are: electromagnetic interference (EMI) immunity, light weight, flexibility, and long range information transmission. FBG sensors are being used in the measurement of temperature, deformation, load, strain and vibration. They are also being used in smart structures, where several distributed sensing FBGs are embedded in materials to allow for the real-time monitoring of the structural conditions of bridges, railroad tracks and airplanes. A new technique for the FBGs characterization using deconvolution is presented. In this technique, a tunable FBG, whose reflection spectrum is known, is used to discover another FBGs profile, which is previously unknown. Using low-cost electronic parts and software developed in LabVIEW, which performs the deconvolution of both FBGs spectra, this technique allows the measurement of the FBG reflection spectrum, its FWHM (Full Width at Half Maximum), and the Bragg center wavelength 'lambda'B. The obtained results enables to validate the proposed technique, allowing concluding that it is robust and, if numerical refinement is implemented, it will be possible to build a low-cost FBG characterization device, in comparison with other commercial devices used for this purpose<br>Mestrado<br>Eletrônica, Microeletrônica e Optoeletrônica<br>Mestre em Engenharia Elétrica

Ensaios de distribuição de água de aspersores são convencionalmente realizados manualmente, requerendo tempo e mão de obra treinada. A automação desses ensaios proporciona redução da demanda por esses recursos e apresenta potencial para minimizar falhas e/ou desvios de procedimento. Atualmente, laboratórios de ensaio e calibração acreditados junto a organismos legais devem apresentar em seus relatórios a incerteza de medição de seus instrumentos e sistemas de medição. Além disso, normas de ensaio e calibração apresentam especificação de incerteza aceitável, como a norma de ensaios de distribuição de água por aspersores, ISO 15886-3 (2012), a qual exige uma incerteza expandida de até 3% em 80% dos coletores. Os objetivos deste trabalho foram desenvolver um sistema automatizado para os ensaios de aspersores em laboratório e realizar a análise de incerteza de medição, para sua quantificação nos resultados de ensaio e para dar suporte ao dimensionamento dos tubos de coleta. O sistema automático foi constituído por um subsistema de gerenciamento, por meio de um aplicativo supervisório, um de pressurização e um de coleta, por meio de módulos eletrônicos microprocessados desenvolvidos. De acordo com instruções do sistema de gerenciamento o sistema de pressurização ajustava a pressão no aspersor por meio do controle da rotação da motobomba, e o sistema de coleta realizava a medição da intensidade de precipitação de água ao longo do raio de alcance do aspersor. A água captada por cada coletor drenava para um tubo de coleta, que estava conectado a uma das válvulas solenoides de um conjunto, onde havia um transmissor de pressão. Cada válvula era acionada individualmente numa sequência para a medição do nível de água em cada tubo de coleta, por meio do transmissor. Por meio das análises realizadas, as menores incertezas foram obtidas para os menores diâmetros de tubo de coleta, sendo que se deve utilizar o menor diâmetro possível. Quanto ao tempo de coleta, houve redução da incerteza de medição ao se aumentar a duração, devendo haver um tempo mínimo para se atingir a incerteza-alvo. Apesar de cada intensidade requer um tempo mínimo para garantir a incerteza, a diferença mínima de nível a ser medida foi a mesma. Portanto, para os ensaios visando atender a incerteza, realizou-se o monitoramento da diferença de nível nos tubos, ou diferença de nível, facilitando a realização do ensaio. Outra condição de ensaio considerou um tempo de coleta para 30 voltas do aspersor, também exigido pela norma ISO 15886-3 (2012). A terceira condição considerou 1 h de coleta, como tradicionalmente realizado. As curvas de distribuição de água obtidas por meio do sistema desenvolvido foram semelhantes às obtidas em ensaios convencionais, para as três situações avaliadas. Para tempos de coleta de 1 h ou 30 voltas do aspersor o sistema automático requereu menos tempo total de ensaio que o ensaio convencional. Entretanto, o sistema desenvolvido demandou mais tempo para atingir a incerteza-alvo, o que é uma limitação, mesmo sendo automatizado. De qualquer forma, o sistema necessitava apenas que um técnico informasse os parâmetros de ensaio e o acionasse, possibilitando que o mesmo alocasse seu tempo em outras atividades.<br>Sprinkler water distribution tests are usually done manually, requiring time and trained labor. Automation of these tests allows saving such resources, and offers potential to minimize failures and/or procedure deviations. Nowadays, calibration and testing laboratories accredited by legal bodies have to present the uncertainty of their instruments and measurement systems. Besides, testing and calibration standards specify acceptable uncertainty, as the standard for sprinkler water distribution test, ISO 15886-3 (2012), which requires an expanded uncertainty up to 3% for 80% of the collectors. The purposes of this work were to develop an automated system for testing sprinkler at laboratory, and perform the analysis uncertainty of measurement, to quantify its magnitude on the testing results, and to support the sizing of collection tubes. The automatic system consisted of a management system, by the supervisory program, a pressurization system, and a collection system, by microprocessed electronic modules developed. According to instructions of the management system, the pressurization system adjusted pressure at the sprinkler by controlling pump rotation, and the collection system measured water application rate through the sprinkler radius. The water from each collector drained to a collecting tube, which was connected to a manifold of valves that contained a pressure transmitter. Each valve was individually triggered in sequence to allow measuring water level within each collection tube, by the transmitter. The analysis of uncertainty showed that the lower diameters of collection tubes presented the lower uncertainty, hence lower diameters should be used when possible. For the collection time, uncertainty decreased as time increased, and should be a minimum value to reach the target uncertainty. Although each application rate requires a minimum time to reach uncertainty, the difference of pressure to be measured stayed the same. Thus, for the tests addressing uncertainty, the difference of pressure was monitored, facilitating the test. Another test condition considered the collection time for 30 laps of the sprinkler, also required by ISO 15886-3 (2012). The third condition considered 1 h of collection, as traditionally done. Water distribution curves obtained from the automated system were similar as those of the conventional tests, for the three situations evaluated. For durations of 1 h or 30 laps of the sprinkler, the automated system required lower total time than the conventional test. However, the system developed demanded more time to perform the test to reach the maximum uncertainty, which is a limitation, even been automatized. In any case, a technician was required just to set parameters and then start the system, so he could allocate his time for other activities.

<p>This report is an outcome of a master degree project at Linköpings University in co-operation with Micronic Laser Systems AB. </p><p>The purpose with this master degree project was to investigate how to implement a receiver in a data transfer system. The system consists of several data channels, where every channel consists of three parts: driver, transmission lines and receiver. The driver send low amplitude differential signals via the transmission lines to the receiver that amplifies and converts it to a single-ended signal. The receiver has to be fast and be able to feed an output signal with high voltage swing. It is also needed for the receivers to have low power consumption since they are close to the load, which is sensitive to heat. </p><p>Different amplifier architectures were investigated to find a suitable circuit for the given prerequisites. In this report the advantages and disadvantages of voltage and current feedback are discussed. </p><p>The conclusions of this work are that in a system with an amplifier as a receiver with differential transmission lines, a single operational amplifier cannot be used. An input stage is needed to isolate the feedback net from the inputs of the operational amplifier. When fast rise time and large output swing are wanted the best amplifier architecture is current feedback amplifiers. A current feedback amplifier in CMOS with the required high voltages and slew rate is hard to realize without very high power consumption.</p>