Abstract The purpose of this work is to further develop a novel dual-mode microwave applicator for diagnosis and thermal ablation treatment. The MR-compatible MW applicator enables differentiation of tumor tissue and healthy tissue through dielectric contrast measurements, optimizing the positioning of the applicator in the lesion. Due to the robust applicator design and the resulting permittivity tracking during ablation, even carbonized tissue can be detected. The use of operating frequencies between 5 and 10 GHz allow a noticeably lower power consumption for microwave ablation of only 20 W compared to commercially available applicators. Clinically relevant dimensions of ablation zones can be achieved and additionally monitored using MR imaging and thermometry.

Abstract Diagnostic applications for skin in the microwave range have developed significantly in recent years, due the non-invasiveness of these applications and their ability to assess tissue water content. Despite their capabilities, however, there is still no appropriate clinically applicable microwave tool for the assessment of burn wounds. A common practice is the visual inspection and evaluation of burns by the doctor, which is a challenging task even for experienced medical professionals. An incorrect assessment can have far-reaching consequences, such as unnecessary surgery or surgery that is necessary but omitted. In this paper, two different approaches of millimeter-wave burn wound assessment are presented: millimeter-wave imaging and near-field spectroscopy. For imaging, a MIMO sparse array was used to assess ex vivo burns on porcine skin in the frequency range of 70–80 GHz. With a resonant millimeter-wave near-field probe, reflective spectroscopy at individual sites of an ex vivo burn on porcine skin in the frequency range of 75–110 GHz was performed. The results showed individual advantages and drawbacks for both approaches, with surprising benefits of the spectroscopic method. Nevertheless, both approaches were shown to be suitable for clinical usage in diagnosing burns.

Abstract A wideband multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna for C-band applications is presented in this paper. It consists of 2 × ${\times}$ 1 hexagonal motifs which serves as radiating elements. The side of each hexagonal element is 5.73 mm and the overall dimension of the proposed MIMO antenna is 30 × ${\times}$ 20 × ${\times}$ 1.6 mm3. The hexagonal motifs are embedded on inexpensive FR-4 lossy substrate. Thereafter, a circle with radius 1 mm is etched at the center of each hexagonal motif. Inverted L-shaped stubs are employed to attain efficient isolation between the nearby antenna elements. Four inverted L-shaped stubs are included to further enhance the isolation and eliminate the antenna size increment simultaneously, by suppressing the surface waves. Before using the decoupling approach, the MIMO antenna had an impedance bandwidth of 6.7 GHz and an isolation of −20 dB. The suggested antenna’s impedance bandwidth and isolation are 5.83 GHz and −52 dB, respectively, after using a decoupling approach (inverted L-shaped stub). The proposed MIMO antenna had a peak gain and radiation efficiency of 3–7 dBi and better than 90% (with decoupling), 2.75 to 6 dBi and greater than 60% (without decoupling). To verify the proposed design, a prototype was developed to compare the simulated parameters with the measured one. The envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) was less than 0.05, and channel capacity loss (CCL) less than 0.3 was achieved with DGS. Besides, scattering matrix such as return loss S 11 and transmission coefficient S 21 between two elements, radiation pattern, and current distribution was also favorable. Thus, the proposed MIMO antenna is advantageous to be used for C-band applications such as developing new generation air-borne and space-borne radars, as well as X-band applications.

Abstract In the proposed work, a miniaturised ultra-wideband tapered slot planar antenna with the aim of gain enhancement, working bandwidth containing lower frequency range, and improving antenna efficiency is presented. The proposed antenna consists of a slotted patch printed on the top layer of FR4 substrate with three 50-Ω resistors connected in the slotted arms and bottom layer consists of an optimized ground plane with a non-uniform parasitic patch which is used to achieve circular polarization in the frequency range of 2.4–2.6 GHz. The measured impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna is 0.3–4 GHz with a peak gain of 3.2 dBi. The overall antenna efficiency is 83% and radiation patterns of the proposed design on different frequencies are shown to confirm the proposed antenna result, especially at lower frequencies. The proposed antenna can be used for the detection of artifacts in the deeper ground known as ground-penetrating radar applications.

frEQUEnZ was first published in 1947 with a circulation of 7000 copies, focusing on Telecommunications. Today, the major aim of Frequenz is to highlight current research activities and development efforts in RF/Microwave Engineering, Photonics and Communications throughout a wide frequency spectrum ranging from radio and microwave frequencies via THz and the infrared up to optical frequencies.

Abstract In this paper, hybrid integration of planar microstrip line and Photonic Band Gap (PBG) structure is proposed for the dielectric characterization of liquids. To implement the PBG structure of the microstrip line, a microfluidic channel with periodic form is introduced into the substrate and filled with different liquids. Based on this configuration, the operation principle of the sensor is based on a frequency shift due to the variation in the center of the bandgap, which in turn changes with the variation of the permittivity of LUT filled in the microfluidic channel. The proposed sensor exploits the behavior of the bandgap as a reflector to construct a resonant structure sensitive to the variation in LUT permittivity. The dimensions of the planar structure are optimized to achieve high precision and discrimination capability. The different empirical expressions describing the complex permittivity with the measured parameters were carried out. To validate the proposed concept, the sensor prototype is designed, fabricated, and tested. The frequency shift related to a change of 3.2 in LUT permittivity corresponds to 180 MHz around 6 GHz. The resonant-mode sensor spans a permittivity range from 1 to 80 with a precision better than 7.2%. The proposed sensor is simple in design and low cost, which may be applied in different applications at the industrial.

Abstract In this paper, a novel ultra-compact metamaterial unit-cell is introduced. The proposed unit-cell consists of one modified rings which has been designed based on the fractal technique and meander technique. These techniques are used to reduce the physical size of the conventional complementary split ring resonators (CSRRs). In the proposed metamaterial unit-cell which is called the fractal/meander CSRR (FMCSRR), the slot lines in the conventional CSRRs are replaced by the fractal and meander slots, simultaneously. The FMCSRR unit-cell is a planar metamaterial element which exhibits negative permittivity and is considered as electric dipole when excited by an axial electric field. Thus, the FMCSRR unit-cell is modeled as a shunt resonator tank. Therefore, by using the proposed FMCSRR configuration, all of the interior space of the ring has been used and the slot lines have been increased. Consequently, the higher inductance has been achieved and the resonance frequency of the proposed FMCSRR unit-cell becomes lower compared with the conventional CSRR. That’s mean the electrical size of the introduced unit-cell FMCSRR unit-cell is smaller than the conventional CSRR with the same physical sizes. A microstrip notch band filter, a microstrip band-pass filter, a half mode substrate integrated waveguide (HMSIW) band-pass filter and three HMSIW filtering power dividers (FPDs) with different power division ratios of 1:1, 1:4, and 1:8 have been designed to illustrate the ability of the proposed FMCSRR unit-cell in the size reduction. All of the designed devices operated at 2.4 GHz which are suitable for WLAN applications. For verification the performance of the utilized techniques in miniaturization of the dimension, the designed equal/unequal HMSIW FPDs have been fabricated and tested. A reasonable agreement between simulated and measured results has been achieved. The results confirmation that a miniaturization about 79% has been obtained. The total size of the proposed HMSIW FPDs are about 0.09λ g × 0.09λ g. The proposed HMSIW FPDs have many advantages in terms of compact size, low insertion loss, high selectivity, easy integration with the other planar circuits, and controllable bandwidth.

Abstract In this article, a compact microstrip lowpass filter (LPF) using elliptical shaped resonators with ultra-wide stopband is rendered. In this respect, LC equal structures of the elliptical shaped resonators are calculated based on the formula of circumference. In addition, to calculate transmission zeros of the presented elliptical shaped resonator, the LC equal structure and its output to input ratio are employed. The proposed LPF has a −3 dB cut-off frequency at 1.50 GHz and the stopband bandwidth of the designed filter is about 13fc, which refers to its ultra-wide stopband. The occupied circuit size of the presented filter is 0.151λ g × 0.044λ g (λ g is the guided wavelength at 1.50 GHz). The designed filter is fabricated on RT/Duroid 5880 substrate. The results of the fabricated and designed filter have clearly demonstrated that not only has the proposed LPF shown a suitable agreement between measured and simulated S-parameters, but also an appropriate stopband bandwidth.

Abstract The design and experimental verification of miniaturized cavity-backed self-triplexing antenna (STA) with high-isolation employing half-mode substrate integrated waveguide (HMSIW) are presented in this work. The proposed STA is constructed by using HMSIW, an Y-shaped slot and three 50Ω feed lines. Three unequal radiating patches are generated by engraving an Y-shaped slot on the top surface of the HMSIW cavity to operate at 3.7/5.0/5.8 GHz for WiMAX/WLAN applications. The proposed STA allows to realize one of the operating band independently by keeping other operating band unaltered and vice-versa. The circuit area of STA is highly miniaturized due to the use of HMSIW cavity and loading of Y-shaped slot. The isolations between three ports are greater than 31 dB. The fabricated STA provides 5.5, 5.92 and 5.93 dBi peak gains at 3.7, 5.0 and 5.8 GHz, respectively. The efficiency of the STA is greater than 92% at all the frequency bands. The constructed STA has a front-to-back ratio of more than 23 dB and a separation of more than 21 dB between co-to-cross polarization levels. Fabrication and measurement are used to validate the intended STA.

Abstract A terahertz metasurface absorber with actively switchable bandwidth enabled by vanadium dioxide (VO2) is presented and investigated numerically. The VO2 is a phase-change material and its conductivity in the terahertz range changes by several orders of magnitude upon phase-transition. The metasurface consists of an H-shaped fractal resonator placed on top of a polyimide spacer and a ground-plane of gold. The resonator is composed of an H-shaped level-1 fractal of gold and VO2 strips that converts it to a level-2 fractal. At room temperatures, the VO2 is in the insulator state and the resonator reduces to a level-1 fractal offering narrowband absorption at 8.08 THz reaching 0.98 absorption. At higher temperatures, the VO2 is in the metallic state and the resonator is effectively a level-2 fractal with an absorption higher than 0.9 in a bandwidth of 6.63–9.89 THz.