Date of Award

3-24-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

Michael D. Seal, PhD.

Abstract

This research investigates the adaptation of a Van Atta style of retrodirective array designed to work at 2 GHz to work in the infrared spectrum of 8-12 μm centered at 30 THz. The Computational Research and Engineering Acquisition Tools and Environments (CREATE) software suite and high performance computing (HPC) resources of the HPC Modernization program were utilized to model and simulate multiple steps of an adaptation process to illustrate and examine the incremental performance changes of frequency scaling the design. Two different substrate materials, germanium and hafnium oxide, are evaluated as the dielectric materials, and a comparison of the broadband performance of scaled designs using both dielectric materials shows that hafnium oxide provides better performance than germanium for this application. In addition, both gold and aluminum are evaluated for use in scaled designs. The results suggest that the cost savings and oxide bonding benefits of aluminum outweigh the slight performance advantage of gold. The Van Atta array concept is adaptable to IR wavelengths and microfabrication. Improved final broadband performance of the scaled design is a factor of approximately three and a half better than the 2 GHz design.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-ENG-MS-16-M-005

DTIC Accession Number

AD1053781

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