This paper presents a state-of-the-art planar microwave sensor designed for highly precise alcohol characterization in aqueous solutions, with a primary focus on its application in COVID-19 disinfectants. Modified from the Jerusalem patch, the sensor operates at 5.58 GHz, achieving a unique balance between heightened sensitivity and cost-effectiveness. A tailor-made 3D-printed case minimizes errors, securely housing the sensor and feeding tube. The sensor effectively discriminates between ethanol and methanol, revealing a notable 16 MHz frequency gap. In COVID-19 applications, it maintains alcohol percentages at 65-75%, with 1% increments. The paper outlines a mathematical model extracting concentrations with the maximum error of only smaller than 1.81%, affirming the sensor's precision. Beyond technical prowess, the sensor's non-destructive nature, real-time monitoring applicability, and freedom from life-cycle limitations mark it as an innovative tool for checking the percentage of alcohol and types of alcohol before using it to kill the virus, contributing significantly to global efforts on disinfectant measurements with noninvasive nature and high precision. This modified Jerusalem sensor stands as a transformative solution, offering unprecedented advantages in design, operational capacity, and broader support for virus-killing applications.

This study presents insights into high-speed optical wireless communication (OWC) within plastic pipes, introducing a Gbps-capable alternative for challenging environments. Utilizing a 1W LED with five wavelengths, the experiment explores signal power, attenuation, and bandwidth characteristics. Notably, the blue LED achieves an unprecedented 58.64 MHz bandwidth, red and purple LEDs demonstrate novel bandwidths of approximately 25.23 MHz, and green and yellow LEDs exhibit unique bandwidths of 23.75 MHz and 9.62 MHz, respectively. The attenuation parameters for different wavelengths provide numerous insights, showcasing the novelty of this research and its potential applications in robot communication within plastic pipes. Concurrently, the paper introduces an approach to address the temperature impact on five distinct wavelength LEDs in OWC. By focusing on variations in LED bandwidth and optical power, an optimal heat sink design is proposed. This design achieves a remarkable minimum temperature of 27.06 degrees C and reduces the chip LED device's response time from 15 to 9 seconds. The significance lies in the novelty of the proposed heat sink, which incorporates variables such as fin thickness, height, air gap width, number of fins, and airflow rate, marking a substantial advancement in thermal management for OWC systems.

This paper introduces a Curved Hollow Substrate Integrated Waveguide (CHSIW) to address the growing demand for millimeter-wave applications, including communication, sensing, imaging, radar, and wireless power transfer systems. Leveraging advancements in integrated circuits and system-in-package (SiP) technology, the CHSIW tackles the challenges associated with hardware integration into curved structures. The design utilizes MultiJet Printing (MJP) for the M3 crystal dielectric substrate and a water laser cutter system for copper sheets, streamlining the fabrication process by eliminating complex via manufacturing steps through prefabricated through-hole vias. Operating in the frequency range of 21.7 GHz to 32 GHz, the CHSIW exhibits outstanding performance on curved surfaces, with measured average attenuation constants of 1.89 Np m-1 (16.42 dB m-1) and 1.95 Np m-1 (16.94 dB/m) for samples with radii of curvature of 166.8 mm and 125.1 mm, respectively. Beyond addressing technical challenges, the CHSIW presents a cost-effective and simplified fabrication process, positioning it as a breakthrough solution for diverse millimeter-wave applications, including future robotic and UAV communications. Furthermore, the proposed design and fabrication technique hold promise for the realization of conformal and free-form Hollow Substrate Integrated Waveguide (HSIW) devices in the future.

Wireless communication technology evolves to meet current needs, focusing on antenna size reduction for smaller, multi-frequency devices. This research introduces a novel approach to miniaturizing a multiband Electromagnetic Band Gap (EBG) reflector using a Double Interdigitated Coplanar Waveguide (DICPW) structure. The mushroom-patterned EBG unit cell, employing a double interdigital technique based on a Coplanar Waveguide (CPW), achieves a significantly slower wave on the transmission line. The unit cell size can be reduced from lambda/2 to lambda /8, allowing control over the second to fourth resonance frequencies. Engineered for a fundamental frequency of 1.8 GHz (LTE), the proposed EBG unit cell supports frequency ranges of 2.45 GHz (WLAN), 4.3 GHz (Altimeter), and 5.2 GHz (WLAN). Integrating this EBG reflector with a dipole antenna at the same frequency results in directional radiation patterns and gains of 8.29 dBi, 8.76 dBi, 8.55 dBi, and 8.22 dBi at resonance frequencies. The innovative reflector, with improved gain and compact dimensions, is relevant to cube satellite and wireless communication systems with versatile multiband frequency requirements.

This paper presents a multiband director based on the frequency selective surface (FSS) unit cell structure using the double layer with interdigital CPW (ICPW) technique. The unit cell consists of the front and the back. The front part has been designed using an ICPW technique based on a coplanar waveguide structure to enhance the capacitance between the transmission line and the semi-ground. The overall structural dimension of the unit cell can be designed to be smaller than the conventional range of λ/2 to λ/8, due to the influence of the slow wave effect on the capacitance of the structure. The back part is the inverted layer of the front, which alternates between substrate and copper. It is composed of a square loop resonator with a double meandering line. The capacitance generated by a double meander line enhances the capacitance in the front part, which influences the control of all resonant frequencies and increases the slow wave on the double-layer unit cell structure, resulting in a significantly reduced dimension. The resonance frequencies for the designs are 1.8 GHz (LTE), 3.7 GHz (Wi-MAX) and 5.2 GHz (WLAN), respectively. According to simulation results, the FSS can transmit all resonant frequencies. It has an overall dimension of 10.93 mm × 11.48 mm. In addition, the FSS unit cell has been arranged as a 7 × 7 array for use as a director. The dimensions are 73.48 mm × 77.38 mm. The FSS director will be evaluated utilizing an omnidirectional dipole antenna at the same resonant frequency as the FSS unit cell. According to both the simulated and measured outcomes, the impedance matching value is below -10 dB at the three resonant frequencies. The FSS director equipped with a dipole antenna exhibits bidirectional propagation characteristics across all resonant frequencies. The antenna gains for simulation are 3.45 dBi, 3.05 dBi, and 3.72 dBi, while the antenna gains for measurement are 3.05 dBi, 2.98 dBi, and 3.12 dBi. The findings indicate a high level of concurrence.

This paper presents a 3D-printed hemispherical lens integrated with a planar ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna. The flower-shaped stub slot UWB antenna is made of 0.8-mm FR-4. The operating frequency of the UWB covers 3.10 GHz - 11.6 GHz with a nominal gain at zero degrees of 1.74 dBi. To enhance the UWB antenna's high-gain radiation, a 3D-printed additive hemispherical lens is designed and fabricated from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). The electrical properties, i.e., relative permittivity and loss tangent, of ABS are 2.66, and 0.003, respectively. Four different lens radii (8 mm, 10 mm, 12 mm, and 14 mm) are chosen to investigate the gain of the antenna. In all four cases, the 3D-printed lens is fixed in place in front of the UWB antenna with an optimum gap of 3 mm chosen to reduce the wave reflection between the lens and source antenna. Based on the measurement results, the reflection coefficient, S11, of four conditions still covers the UWB frequency range. The nominal gain at zero-degree values for lens radii of 8 mm, 10 mm, 12 mm, and 14 mm are 3.43 dBi, 4.22 dBi, 4.73 dBi, and 5.18 dBi, respectively. The proposed additive 3D-printed dielectric lens antenna also offers many advantages, i.e., ease of design and assembly, low-cost fabrication, and size reduction for high-gain antennas. Furthermore, the high-gain antenna provides a narrow half power beamwidth, which can be implemented to increase the resolution of the imaging system.

This paper presents a dual-mode characteristic for miniaturized metamaterial with a unit cell design based on an interdigital coplanar waveguide (ICPW) combined with trisection step-impedance to enable the three resonant frequency responses of 1.8 GHz, 3.7 GHz, and 5.8 Hz. In addition, the unit cell dimensions can be reduced from 2/2 to 2/8 due to the fact that the ICPW technique based on the CPW structure enhances the capacitive load between the transmission line and the side ground, thereby increasing the slow-wave on the transmission line. In addition, the trisection step-impedance will be incorporated and applied to the transmission line and cooperate with the unit cell structure's capacitive load to effectively resonate at the desired frequency location. Moreover, the unit cell structure designed with the method above must be utilized as a double layer in which the structure on both sides is identical. The back structure will property the rod, which will cause the permittivity and permeability to be negative and closer to zero. This property of the proposed material allows for its utilization as a director at its first resonant frequency and as a reflector at the subsequent second and third resonant frequencies. The proposed metamaterial employs FR-4 printed circuit boards with a dielectric constant (epsilon(r)) of 4.4, a substrate thickness of 1.6 mm, a conductor thickness of 0.035 mm, and a loss tangent (tan delta) of 0.04. The unit cell size is approximately 14 mmx14 mm. The unit cell will then be arranged as a 7 x 7 array with an overall dimension of 98 x 98 mm(2) to evaluate an antenna's performance. An antenna used for testing the proposed unit cell is a dipole antenna that propagates at a single frequency corresponding to the unit cell's resonant frequency. At all resonant frequencies, the impedance matching of the dipole is less than -10 dB. At 1.8 GHz, 3.7 GHz, and 5.8 GHz, the dipole antenna gain is 2 dBi, 2.06 dBi, and 1.95 dBi, respectively. Moreover, the dipole antenna's characteristics were simulated using the CST program in conjunction with the unit cell array. Based on the simulation and measurement results, the antenna with the unit cell array exhibits an impedance bandwidth of less than -10 dB at frequencies of 1.8, 3.7, and 5.8 GHz. The gains obtained from the simulation results are 5.49 dBi, 8.21 dBi, and 7.87 dBi, while the measurement results show gains of 5.73 dBi, 8.19 dBi, and 7.79 dBi, respectively. The simulated and measured outcomes demonstrate a substantial correspondence.

Presented within this paper are the findings and illustrated experimental results, for the extracting parameters of specific chemical solutions, used to represent the complicated permittivity and the loss tangent of liquids at microwave frequencies. In particular, the endothelial cells growth medium and Dulbecco's Phosphate Buffered Saline (DPBS) solution in the case of the experiment's sample were evaluated in 50 ml water-based solution at a test frequency between 200 MHz and 50 GHz. The vector network analyzer model E8361A was used for measuring complex reflection and permittivity coefficient parameters. From the numerical results, different values of the loss tangent were identified when compared with test samples of plain water in the frequency range of 200 MHz to 10 GHz. Findings obtained produced the same results in the 10 GHz as well as higher frequency ranges. Moreover, the research presents the characteristics, differential measurement results of growth medium used for human endothelial cells and DPBS, two of the most common solutions required for culturing cells in vitro. By enabling to distinguish sample characteristics in response to magnetic resonance, this method has potential to be applied for non-invasive and non-destructive analysis of biological samples in biology and medicine. 

In this paper, we demonstrate a novel manufacturing technology for high-aspect-ratio vertical interconnects for high-frequency applications. This novel approach is based on magnetic self-assembly of prefabricated nickel wires that are subsequently insulated with a thermosetting polymer. The high-frequency performance of the through silicon vias (TSVs) is enhanced by depositing a gold layer on the outer surface of the nickel wires and by reducing capacitive parasitics through a low-k polymer liner. As compared with conventional TSV designs, this novel concept offers a more compact design and a simpler, potentially more cost-effective manufacturing process. Moreover, this fabrication concept is very versatile and adaptable to many different applications, such as interposer, micro electromechanical systems, or millimeter wave applications. For evaluation purposes, coplanar waveguides with incorporated TSV interconnections were fabricated and characterized. The experimental results reveal a high bandwidth from dc to 86 GHz and an insertion loss of <0.53 dB per single TSV interconnection for frequencies up to 75 GHz.

This paper gives an overview of recent achievements in microwave micro‐electromechanical systems (microwave MEMS) at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. The first topic is a micromachined W‐band phase shifter based on a micromachined dielectric block which is vertically moved by integrated MEMS actuators to achieve a tuning of the propagation constant of a micromachined transmission line. The second topic is W‐band MEMStuneable microwave high‐impedance metamaterial surfaces conceptualized for local tuning of the electromagnetic resonance properties of surface waves on a high‐impedance surface. The third topic covers 3‐dimensional micromachined coplanar transmission lines with integrated MEMS actuators which move the sidewalls of these transmission lines. Multi‐stable switches, tuneable capacitors, tuneable couplers, and tuneable filters have been implemented and characterized for 1‐40 GHz frequencies. As a forth topic, micromachined waveguide switches are presented. Finally, silicon‐micromachined near‐field and far‐field sensor and antenna interfaces are shown, including a micromachined planar lens antenna and a tapered dielectric rod measurement probe for medical applications.