Abbas Semnani
University of Toledo, OH·Engineering·Early-career
Wireless devices share an increasingly crowded radio spectrum, so radio-frequency (RF) electronics that can be retuned on the fly are in high demand. Today's tuning tools have limited tuning range and cannot handle high power.
- Fields
Engineering
Physics
- Topics
microplasma
cold plasma
plasma physics
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2029
What they work on
- Develop theoretical and modeling frameworks for microplasmas at high frequencies, including a circuit-based electromagnetic-plasma simulator that links electron density, gas type and pressure to RF behavior.
- Build a closed-loop monitoring and control system with new diagnostic techniques to precisely manipulate microplasma kinetics and keep the plasmas stable.
- Realize high-Q microplasma varactors, tunable capacitors with low energy loss, that offer much wider tuning range and power handling than semiconductor or MEMS tuners.
- Create natural epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) microplasmas and low-loss negative index materials, which interact with electromagnetic waves in ways ordinary materials cannot.
More about the research
These tools include semiconductor devices, microelectromechanical systems, liquid crystals and magnetic materials. Cold plasma offers an alternative. It is an electrically charged gas near room temperature. Changing its electron density, gas type or pressure changes how it interacts with electromagnetic waves, and it can be reconfigured within nanoseconds. This project explores the basic physics of very small plasmas, called microplasmas, as building blocks for what the abstract calls 'gaseous microelectronics.'
Why it matters
Rapidly and widely tunable, low-loss, high-power materials for RF tuning do not currently exist. Microplasma components could let wireless systems use the radio spectrum more efficiently and switch between frequencies, helping meet rising demand for wireless services. The abstract also notes possible benefits for sensing, biomedical and space technologies.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Toshikazu Nishida
University of Florida, FL·Engineering
Develop zero-power magnetic field sensors and shear-stress sensors for self-powered, edge-of-the-node sensing in IoT systems.
Jun-Chau Chien
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Engineering·Early-career
Develop low-loss wireless interconnects that carry radio signals between face-to-face stacked chips separated by a 10–20 µm gap, together with a low-cost chip-stacking process for 3D radio-frequency integrated circuits.
Chonglin Zhang
University of North Dakota, ND·Engineering
Develop accurate, scalable algorithms for particle-in-cell (PIC) plasma simulations on unstructured meshes, which are flexible grids that fit complex device geometries, targeting GPU-accelerated supercomputers.
The school
University of Toledo: 10 labs on PI Pages, $73M a year on research, 120 research doctorates a year.
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