All-Dielectric Photonic-Assisted Radio Front-End Technology

Ali Ayazi
Advisor: Bahram Jalali

Friday, October 22, 2010 at 10:00am
4760 Boelter (CS Dept)

Abstract:
The threats to civil society posed by high-power electromagnetic weapons are viewed as a grim but real possibility in the world after 11 September 2001. These weapons produce a power surge capable of destroying or damaging sensitive circuitry in electronic systems. Unfortunately, the trend towards circuits with smaller sizes and voltages renders modern electronics highly susceptible to such damage. Radiofrequency communication systems are particularly vulnerable, because the antenna provides a direct port of entry for electromagnetic radiation. In this work, we present a novel type of radiofrequency receiver front end featuring a complete absence of electronic circuitry and metal interconnects, the traditional 'soft spots' of a conventional radiofrequency receiver. The device exploits a dielectric resonator antenna to capture and deliver the radiofrequency signal onto a whispering-gallery mode electro-optic field sensor. The dielectric approach has an added benefit in that it reduces the physical size of the front end, an important benefit in mobile applications.

Biography:
Ali Ayazi received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran in 2005 and M.S. degree in electrical engineering from UCLA in 2008. He has been a research assistant in the Photonics Laboratory at UCLA since 2005 where he has developed the first all-dielectric photonic-assisted radio front-end receiver. His research interests lie in the fields of microwave photonics, biomedical optics, and image processing for biomedical applications.