Subramanyam This award supports Guru Subrmanyam and students from University of Dayton in a collaboration with Spartak Gevorgian of the Department of Microelectronics at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. The collaboration will make significant contributions to the field of Ferroelectric thin-films and Applications in Tunable Microwave Components. The goal is to develop tunable Electromagnetic Bandgap structures (EBGs) and frequency selective surfaces (FSS) with development focused on Si monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMIC) compatible designs and processes. Strontium titanate and barium strontium titanate ferroelectric thin-films with low microwave loss and dielectric tunability at room temperature will be used in this work. The research will also focus on creating ferroelectric tunable planar two-dimensional artificial lattices for electromagnetic bandgap structures as well as frequency selective surfaces. Through the dielectric tunability of the ferroelectric thin-films, one can obtain frequency tunability with the possibility of tuning the center frequencies of the stop- bands (bandgaps) and the pass-bands. The US group has already demonstrated a tunable one- dimensional EBG that offers stop-band frequency tunability. The current work will extend this concept to 2D and potentially 3D EBGs resulting in superior rejection bands and tunability. EBGs and FSS have proven to enhance the bandwidth of low antennas as well as improve their gain. With the possibility of frequency tunability, will come improved performance of low profile antennas such as microstrip patches, and improved spatial filtering properties of tunable FSS. Si MMIC compatible designs will allow easier integration of these circuits into MICs, and MMICs. The collaboration with the Swedish group. In addition, graduate and undergraduate students from the University of Dayton will be actively involved in the proposed research, working in conjunction with post- doctoral and graduate students from Chalmers University.
