4M · Optimal design and fabrication of electromagnetic metamaterials for millimeter and microwave applications
FP6 — Marie Curie Actions (Human Resources and Mobility)
- Duration
- 2006-09-01 → 2008-08-31
- EU contribution
- €80,000
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- IRG
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Results in brief
Final Activity Report Summary - 4M (Optimal Design and Fabrication of Electromagnetic Metamaterials for Millimeter and Microwave Applications)
Wireless communication systems must continue to improve in performance, while becoming smaller in size and power consumption and cheaper to produce. Concurrently, cost, size and performance expectations become more and more stringent, necessitating advanced system architectures, novel materials and versatile design optimisation procedures. A generalised material design procedure which could possibly be linked to the practical fabrication of these new designs has not been proposed. As a result, radio frequency (RF) technologies are still mostly designed around properties of available materials, since certain desirable property combinations are simply unavailable. Designers can only choose from what is listed in their handbook, so their creativity is limited to the clever use of these existing materials. In this project, a material synthesis effort for the development of novel metamaterials for microwave and millimetre wave antennas (4M materials) was proposed with two major objectives: 1. to develop a versatile design methodology and 2. to develop an automated dry powder deposition (DPD) technology. These 4M metamaterials were created from conventional substances, using powerful topology optimisation methods to engineer the property tensors and optimise application-specific figures of merit of antennas, such as broadband operation and miniaturisation. They were fabricated using sophisticated fabrication techniques such as DPD, suitable for multi-material textured composites that spatially varied in all three dimensions. The combination of powerful optimal design techniques using approximation techniques and surrogate models, along with their practical realisation using automated DPD for specific applications, served as a general example for a new approach in the creation of designed magneto-dielectric composites, useful for other functional materials. The new functionality of metamaterials was expected to enable new technology for several microwave and millimetre wave applications. This would in turn lead to cheaper and much more efficient configurations for the much smaller and network-centric future systems.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
In this proposal, a new class of artificial materials with prescribed electromagnetic properties, created to a custom design via topology optimization and advanced multimaterial fabrication technologies is proposed. These artificial materials, or meta-materials, are composites of dielectrics and magnetic oxides, combined to produce new electromagnetic property tensors and previously unobtainable figures of merit.Unlike traditional antenna design approaches based on surface metallization (where an experienced antenna designer can bypass formal design tools), exploitation of novel engineered material volumes for antennas (and other RF applications) can only be realized with generalized design methodologies. Topology optimization is such a method and allows for novel material microstructure and topology designs from scratch.The combination of powerful optimal design techniques with practical realization for specific applications, will serve as a general example for a new approach for creating designed metamaterials, useful for other functional materials. The new functionality of metamaterials will enable new technology for several microwave and millimeter wave applications. The focus in this work will be the design and fabrication of meta-materials for shrinking the size and increasing the functionality of antennas such as large bandwidth and high gain.By reducing size and adding functionality to a radiator element, avenues will be opened for many new and practical phased array applications such as RF sensing, miniaturized transceivers and covert RF tags to mention a few. This in turn will lead to cheaper configurations for the much smaller and network-centric future systems.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- SABANCI UNIVERSITY · ISTANBULCoordinatorCity levelTürkiye
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union