Teaching

The Course can be Given on Demand

Course Description

Why electroacoustics (just an example): We live in a world where the natural resources become more and more deficient. Petrol, clean water, energy, food etc. - are just a few commonplace examples. But what kind of production is growing most fast? Food? Raw materials? Machines? - No! It is easy to get a correct answer - just looking at stock market- Google, Ericsson, Nokia, etc... - all biggest companies now are related to the activity, which is generation, transmission and distribution of information of all kind. The transmission of huge amount information is a key issue for the development of a modern society. One could think that there is no problem of limited resources at least in this area. Unfortunately, it is not so. Of course "0" and "1" is just symbols, but to transmit them one need frequency bands. However, radio frequency bands are limited. Frequency bands become a deficit resource of our time. For example to get licenses for frequency bands Telecom companies paid enormous money. Anyway, frequency bands are treated as property, and very expensive one. That is why frequency filters are so important now and will be even more important in future - they are like fences, like boundaries, not allowing your neighbors to use your garden. In the circuits the Q-factor determines the steepness of the transition area in a filter. Only mechanical resonance can offer high Q- factor at a reasonable dimension and cost. Modern handsets as well as wireless data communications make extensive use of such components operating in the microwave region. Each mobile phone for example has several EA devices - Duplexer and Filters. Other very important applications are low noise frequency sources used in almost every communication system as well as high-resolution sensors (Bio-chemical, Chemical and Physical), wireless passive RFIDs (Radio Frequency Identification) and RFID based sensors, Ultrasonic particle manipulation - sample amplification, Micro- and Nano- electro-mechanical Systems (MEMS & NEMS) etc.

The course is meant to provide the students with sufficient theoretical background in the field as well as practical engineering skills, expertise and know-how with regard to the design, fabrication and characterization of such devices for both continued studies at graduate level as well as work in industry.

Course Content

Theory of electro-acoustic and opto-acoustic waves in piezoelectric solids; Wave equations, plane wave and guided wave solutions; Propagation effects such as attenuation, diffraction, reflection, etc; Piezoelectric materials; Operation of high frequency electroacoustic devices for time and frequency control; Design and fabrication of advanced electroacoustic devices such as resonators, delay lines, bandpass filters, etc. Specific attention is devoted to high performance devices for use in mobile telecommunication as well as in sensor applications and RFID tags. The course includes practical assignment regarding measurement, modeling and characterization of various devices.