Engineering Commons^™

Understanding The Radiation Effects On Fiber Optic Sensors, Sohel Rana

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, the effects of radiation (gamma, neutron or mixed gamma and neutron) on optical fiber sensors are studied and new techniques for real-time measurement of radiation-induced macroscopic changes in optical fibers are presented. It is crucial among the research and development efforts in the nuclear energy field to conduct experiments in Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) to support lifetime extension, novel fuels and materials development, better fuel management, and enhanced safety of existing as well as future nuclear power plants (NPP). Due to their unparalleled and unique advantages over traditional sensors, optical fiber sensors are deemed potential candidates for …

Study And Design Of Array And Beamsteering Antennas For Millimeter Wave Band Application, Saeideh Shad

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Millimeter wave (mmWave) communication systems have attracted significant interest regarding supporting high data rate of Gigabit/s communications for the new generation of wireless communication networks. MmWave communication systems have frequency ranges in between 30 and 300 GHz wherein an enormous amount of unused bandwidth is available. Although the available bandwidth of mmWave frequencies is promising for high data rate communications, the propagation characteristics of mmWave frequencies are significantly different from microwave frequency band in terms of path loss, diffraction and blockage, and atmospheric absorption. In general, the overall losses of mmWave signals are significantly larger than that of microwave signals …

Integrated Circuit Design For Hybrid Optoelectronic Interconnects, Kehan Zhu

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on high-speed circuit design for the integration of hybrid optoelectronic interconnects. It bridges the gap between electronic circuit design and optical device design by seamlessly incorporating the compact Verilog-A model for optical components into the SPICE-like simulation environment, such as the Cadence design tool.

Optical components fabricated in the IME 130nm SOI CMOS process are characterized. Corresponding compact Verilog-A models for Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) device are developed. With this approach, electro-optical co-design and hybrid simulation are made possible.

The developed optical models are used for analyzing the system-level specifications of an MZM based optoelectronic transceiver link. Link …

Simulation Of A Magnetron Using Discrete Modulated Current Sources, Sulmer A. Fernández Gutierrez

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Magnetrons are microwave oscillators and are extensively used for commercial and military applications requiring power levels from the kilowatt to the megawatt range. It has been proposed that the use of gated field emitters with a faceted cathode in place of the conventional thermionic cathode could be used to control the current injection in a magnetron, both temporally and spatially. In this research, this concept is studied using the 2-D particle trajectory simulation Lorentz2E and the 3-D particle-in-cell (PIC) code VORPAL. The magnetron studied is a ten cavity, rising sun magnetron, which can be modeled easily using a 2-D simulation. …

Analysis Of A Miniature Radio Frequency Ion Thruster With An Inductively Coupled Plasma Source, Peter Paul Bumbarger

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The performance of a 2 cm miniature ion thruster was analyzed. A thruster of this size was predicted to produce a thrust of 200 μN. The plasma density was measured against rf input power and propellant flow rate for three configurations: the ICP source by itself; the ICP source with discharge chamber; and finally, the ICP source, the discharge chamber, and the permanent magnet cusp system. Once the optimum case was determined, electrostatic grids were added and thrust measurements were taken with a set of segmented ion collector plates.

The miniature rf ion thruster obtained a thrust of 22.35 μN …