Browsing by Subject "Liquid metals"

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    Digital microfluidics for reconfigurable antennas
    (IEEE, 2014) Damgaci, Y.; Çağatay, Engin; Bıyıklı, Necmi; Cetiner, B. A.
    Usage of fluids (microfluidic or otherwise) in antennas provides a conceptually easy reconfiguration mechanism in the aspect of physical alteration. However, a requirement of pumps, valves, etc. for liquid transportation makes the antenna implementations rather impractical for the real-life scenarios. This work reports on the theoretical calculations and experiments conducted to evaluate the electrowetting on dielectric (EWOD) driven digital microfluidics as a reconfiguration mechanism for antennas and RF circuits. © 2014 European Association on Antennas and Propagation.
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    Fabrication and characterization of liquid metal-based micro-electromechanical DC-contact switch for RF applications
    (CRC Press, 2012) Çağatay, Engin; Noyan, Mehmet Alican; Damgaci, Y.; Cetiner, B. A.; Bıyıklı, Necmi
    We demonstrate that room-temperature liquid metal alloy droplets of Eutectic Gallium Indium (EGaIn) and Gallium Indium Tin alloy (Galinstan) can be actuated using electro-wetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) effect. With the application of 80-100V across the actuation electrode and ground electrode, the metallic liquid droplets were observed to be actuated. We have studied the actuation characteristics using different electrode architectures in open-air configuration as well as in encapsulated microfluidic channel test-beds. The resulting microfluidic DC actuation might potentially be used for RF switching applications.
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    Reconfigurable nested ring-split ring transmitarray unit cell employing the element rotation method by microfluidics
    (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2015) Erdil, E.; Topalli, K.; Esmaeilzad, N. S.; Zorlu, O.; Kulah, H.; Aydin, C. O.
    A continuously tunable, circularly polarized X-band microfluidic transmitarray unit cell employing the element rotation method is designed and fabricated. The unit cell comprises a double layer nested ring-split ring structure realized as microfluidic channels embedded in Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) using soft lithography techniques. Conductive regions of the rings are formed by injecting a liquid metal (an alloy of Ga, In, and Sn), whereas the split region is air. Movement of the liquid metal together with the split around the ring provides 360° linear phase shift range in the transmitted field through the unit cell. A circularly polarized unit cell is designed to operate at 8.8 GHz, satisfying the necessary phase shifting conditions provided by the element rotation method. Unit cell prototypes are fabricated and the proposed concept is verified by the measurements using waveguide simulator method, within the frequency range of 8-10 GHz. The agreement between the simulation and measurement results is satisfactory, illustrating the viability of the approach to be used in reconfigurable antennas and antenna arrays.