Disseny, caracterització i aplicació d'estructures basades en metamateriales al desenvolupament de subsistemes de microones i mil·limètriques

This is a multidisciplinary Project aimed to the design and characterization of new artificially fabricated materials (metamaterials), including electromagnetic bandgaps and left handed materials, and their application to the development of high performance microwave and millimeter wave components and subsystems. Specifically, new planar and waveguide structures based on periodic or quasi-periodic arrays of split ring resonators (SRRs, essential components of left-handed media) will be proposed (left handed media). Due to their electromagnetic properties and small dimensions SRRs are very promising for the design of a new category of ultracompact filters with potentially great impact on the miniaturization and/or full integration of RF front ends for future communication systems. In addition, reconfigurable circuits, based on the control of phase velocity achievable in periodic propagating media loaded with nonlinear reactances. Will be designed and fabricated. To demonstrate the viability of this approaches, microwave and millimetre wave prototypes will be fabricated on several technologies, including guided wave technology, PCB technology, MCM-D and MEMS. It is also our interest to develop 2D and 3D left handed media, study their properties, experimentally demonstrate the effects related to backward wave propagation and explore their potential applications