Category Archives: Computing & Communications

Displays, networking, storage, telephony, video, wireless, etc.

Dual band cellular/GPS semicircular loop slot in metal film

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Summary:

Researchers at the Ohio State University have developed a unique conformal slot antenna that can be used in a cellular or GPS application. This antenna is designed to transmit and/or receive radio signals in more than one frequency band. Prototypes of this design show that we can obtain GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) performance equal to the best commercial antenna tested so far.

Potential Applications:

For use in cellular or GPS devices.

Advantages:

Performance that is equal to or better than the best commercial antenna tested to date.

Resonant Interband Tunneling Diodes–Extending Moore’s Law and Enabling New Circuitry

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Summary:

Since the early 1960’s, the utility of the tunnel diode (or Esaki diode) has been evident, but several practical hurdles have kept it from reaching mainstream status. Historically, it has been difficult to control peak current and, more importantly, tunnel diode fabrication has lacked a Si-based process that can easily be mass produced and integrated into existing Si-based integrated circuits. As a result, today’s tunnel diodes are primarily used in discrete form and for niche applications. Regardless, tunnel diodes have many current and future applications, and the challenges of aggressively scaled CMOS is forcing this subject to be seriously revisited, since quantum tunneling will dominate in any ultra-low dimensional material. The structure of the Resonant Interband Tunneling Diode (RITD) differs from that of the Esaki diode (traditional tunnel diode) which results in additional useful properties. In RITDs, electrons quantum mechanically tunnel across an energy well formed between two barriers, where Esaki diodes have no energy well. This quantum mechanical tunneling effect happens extremely quickly and thus very high speed electronics can be realized with the use of RITDs. Terahertz operation has been demonstrated. Furthermore, a useful effect called Negative Differential Resistance (NDR) can be exploited using these devices.

Potential Applications:

  • Can augment CMOS technology resulting in novel logic and embedded circuit topologies with reduced device count, low power, and faster speed.
  • Can be implemented in ICs, memory devices, and small, lightweight portable electronics for greater performance at lower power consumption
  • Applications found in oscillators, frequency locking circuits, advanced SRAM circuits, highly integrated A/D converters, high speed digital latches, and many others

Advantages:

  • Uses quantum tunneling, a very high-speed process. Terahertz operation has been demonstrated
  • Shown to exhibit Negative Differential Resistance (NDR)
  • Low cost, compatible with current CMOS technology, and easy to integrate into existing manufacturing processes
  • Runs at room temperature and at very low voltage
  • Can be combined with existing technologies to offer flexibility

IP Status:

Tunneling Diode: Use and Manufacturing – US Pending
Using Backward Tunneling Diode as a Sensor – US Pending

Method for Dynamic 3D Wavelet Transform for Video Compression

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Summary:

Video is a data-rich medium that results in the creation of large data sets requiring large memory spaces and wide bandwidth to transmit. At The Ohio State University, we have created a dynamically grouped, 3D wavelet technology which significantly reduces the bit-rate for transmitting or storing audio, video and image signals, and out-performs existing technologies in terms of compression efficiency, image quality and scope of applications. Demonstration software is available.

Potential Applications:

  • Streaming internet or wireless video and audio transmission
  • Mobile phone video
  • Video conferencing
  • Video on demand
  • Digital video surveillance
  • Multi-media email
  • Video databases and archiving
  • Digital video editing

Advantages:

  • Higher compression ratios than other techniques (e.g. discrete cosine transform based MPEG), while maintaining superior image quality
  • Adaptive grouping 3D system for enhanced compression ratios
  • Separate object and background compression
  • Packed-integer implementation of wavelet transform for high-speed computation
  • Software only solution
  • Amenable to VLSI or DSP hardware implementations
  • Suitable for handheld devices, since integer based computation allows for low power IC use
  • Flexible algorithm facilitates tuning to available computational resources

IP Status:

US Patent No.: 6,801,573 (October 5, 2004)

Optical technologies related to communication, quality of service measurement and radar

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Summary:

Ohio State researchers have developed a portfolio of 20 properties which relate to optical technologies. These technologies include optical interconnections, optical delays, spot displacers, beam combiners, optical correlators, beem steerers and circulators. These technologies can be used in optical communications, phased array radars, optical signal processing and optical beam steering.

Potential Applications:

  • Optical communications routing
  • Quality control, defect detection and pattern shape and recognition of signals for fiber optic systems
  • Phased array radar systems
  • Document security

Advantages:

  • Devices are wavelength flexible
  • Ability to combine multiple optical beams into a single exit channel
  • Ability to introduce true time delays in a signal during transit over a wide bandwidth
  • Can correlate tens of thousands of signals in the temporal, rather than spatial, domain
  • Relays quality of service and defect information in a fraction of the time of conventional methods

Emulating Metamaterials Using a Simple Printed Microstrip Design

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Summary:

Researchers at the Ohio State University’s ElectroScience Laboratory have been able to use simple (printed on uniform substrates) microwave circuit components to emulate the extraordinary propagation phenomena traditionally encountered in photonic crystals and metamaterials. These materials have been shown to exhibit unique and useful properties for microwave and optics applications such as delay lines, couplers, and antennas. One class of these structures demonstrated significant wave slowdown and amplitude increase within a small region, leading to miniaturization of antennas and other microwave circuit components. Another important property of metamaterials that has attracted significant research interest is the realization of a negative index of refraction. As the latter are difficult and expensive to manufacture, the proposed technology provides a practical approach to realize such unique properties. The researchers have already been able to realize these extraordinary properties using uniquely invented, cost effective, and easy to manufacture microstrip transmission lines arrangements.

Potential Applications:

  • Enables easy and inexpensive miniaturization of microwave and optical circuit components such as coupled lines, delay elements, phase shifters, printed antennas, antenna arrays, and solid state semiconductor optoelectronic devices
  • Enjoys the benefits derived from photonic crystals and metamaterials at a fraction of the cost
  • Enables a boost in gain while maintaining the same size dimensions

Advantages:

  • Compared to photonic crystals and metamaterials, this structure is much more cost effective and easier to manufacture, while exhibiting similar properties
  • Easy to retrofit with existing manufacturing processes and manufacture in volume since it is based on printed circuit technology

Ultra-Wide Band, Electrically Small Antennas

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Summary:

There is great commercial interest for antennas that can operate over large frequency bands. This is especially true for electrically small antennas (small in terms of wavelength). Designing effective, wide bandwidth, electrically small antennas is one of the most challenging problems in antenna engineering. Researchers at the Ohio State University have invented a method for appropriately loading the antenna at various locations along the structure with reactive elements (capacitors and inductors) which can have negative values (non-Foster elements) and can greatly increase the bandwidth of the antenna by controlling its currents. This concept is more general than previously reported methods based on the design of matching networks, which are based on the current and voltage behavior at the antenna terminals only. In contrast, this invention deals with currents throughout the entire antenna structure and results in an antenna with a simple and small form factor, ideal for miniature or portable electronics that require a small footprint.

Potential Applications:

  • Handheld/portable electronics developers/manufacturers
  • Printed electronics developers/manufacturers
  • Defense applications
  • Medical sensing applications
  • Wireless sensor networks/scalable data fusion sensor networks

Advantages:

  • Yields Ultra-Wide-Band (UWB) antennas with a simple and small form-factor
  • Solves the narrow bandwidth problem that exists for electrically small antennas
  • Preserves the same pattern shape over the desired frequency range
  • Superior to designs based on matching networks
  • Enables a systematic, general design methodology for antenna loading

Methods and Systems for Ultra-Precise Measurement and Control of Object Motion in Six Degrees of Freedom

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Summary:

In microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), microelectronic fabrication techniques have led to mostly planar parts having dimensions in the vertical direction of only a few micrometers. Multi-scale 3-D devices, whose components range in size from several millimeters down to nanometers, are believed by many researchers and practitioners to potentially have a much greater range of applications than MEMS in a wide range of industries including medicine, communications, defense, aerospace, and consumer products. Metrology, manipulation, and testing of these devices have proven to be a significant barrier to their further development. To overcome this barrier, researchers at The Ohio State University have developed a visual sensing method and system that provides the full pose of multiple 3-D micro objects with under 10 nanometer precision in x-y-z. Furthermore, the system can automatically perform positioning and alignment of micro objects in real time using measurements derived from a single image, so that no scanning is necessary to obtain ‘out-of-plane’ motion parameters. Applications include dynamic alignment of micro parts, assembly of micro-optical and micro-mechanical components, and assembly of micro sensors, among others.

Potential Applications:

  • Micro-assembly and manipulation station developers
  • Sensor and measurement system manufacturers
  • R&D workstation developers

Advantages:

  • Provides the full pose of multiple 3-D objects with under 10nm precision in x-y-z
  • The six-degree-of-freedom motion of each micro object is measured from a single image so that no scanning is necessary to obtain ‘out-of-plane’ motion parameters
  • Allows automatic real-time positioning and alignment of micro-objects
  • Can serve as a compact motion sensor and can be employed to achieve direct metrology and direct visual servo control in the object space with nanometer resolution

Multi-Degree-of-Freedom Nano-Probes: Design, Actuation, and Measurement

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Summary:

In applications such as scanning probe microscopy (e.g. AFM), nano-metrology, and micro/nano manipulation, traditional nano-probes are limited in that their tips have a fixed orientation. As a result, they are useful primarily for near-planar samples. Complex geometrical features or features with large changes in topography can either not be imaged at all or are imaged at greatly reduced lateral resolution with increased artifacts. Researchers at the Ohio State University have developed a novel multi-axis nano-probe that enables high-resolution imaging of 3-D surfaces on arbitrarily complex geometric features and nano-manipulation of 3-D samples. For these applications, the probe enables fast and precise co-located control of tip orientation by several tens of degrees and multi-axis control of probe-sample interaction forces. Together, they allow for controlled 3-D manipulation of soft, sensitive specimens and imaging samples with complex geometry (like re-entrant features and steep side-walls).

Potential Applications:

  • AFM equipment manufacturers
  • Nanometrology instrument manufacturers
  • Nanomanipulation system manufacturers
  • NEMS/MEMS manufacturers

Advantages:

  • Enables control of probe-orientation along two independent axes by several tens of degrees while retaining the probe-stiffness along the Z-axis
  • Compact, high-bandwidth, high-gain actuation for fast, large-angle tip-positioning
  • Enables the measurement of tip orientation angles that are possibly over a hundred times larger than the measurement range of the optical detectors used in scanning probe microscopy while retaining the high resolution of the detectors
  • Enables multi-axis co-located control of probe-sample interaction forces
  • Enables real-time tracking of surface orientation by the probe-tip during 3-D imaging of sample surfaces

Device and Method for Producing Optically-Controlled Incremental Time Delays

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Summary:

Generating precise and reliable true time delays (TTDs) is of paramount importance for phased array radars and a host of other applications. True time delay avoids beam squint in wideband antenna systems. Researchers at The Ohio State University have developed a free-space optical TTD device that can provide many bits of delay (more than 15 bits) for hundreds of antenna elements in ultra-compact form (half a cubic foot) with delays varying from femtoseconds to tens of nanoseconds. The invention uses a single MEMS chip, free space for massive overlapping of beam space, and a handful of mirrors. A programmable tapped delay line has many other uses, including optical correlation, optical matched filtering, optical signal processing, optical code-division multiple access coding and decoding, photonic analog-to-digital conversion, and optical communications performance monitoring. A variation of the device can also be used for optical interconnections and routers. Electronically implementing TTDs is generally impractical because of the need for many long lengths of strip line, waveguides, or coaxial cable, which are expensive, bulky, and temperature sensitive. Since long path lengths are relatively easy to obtain optically, optical TTD systems have been developed, either using fibers or free-space paths, but these existing systems are expensive and bulky due to the use of multiple optical switches. Researchers at The Ohio State University have developed a free-space optical TTD device that uses only one optical switch or spatial light modulator for the entire system instead of one or more switches for each bit, as in previous systems. Furthermore, the device avoids beam-spreading problems that may be present in other free-space systems by using a multiple-pass optical cell with refocusing mirrors. As a result, the device is more inexpensive, compact, and temperature insensitive than existing devices.

Potential Applications:

  • Optical multiplexing/demultiplexing applications
  • Optical routing and switching
  • Phased array radars
  • Optical signal processing
  • Optical performance monitoring

Advantages:

  • Uses only one optical switch or spatial light modulator
  • Ultra-compact form factor
  • Small component count

Instantaneous Monitoring of the Quality of Optical Telecommunications Links

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Summary:

Ohio State researchers have developed a novel method of signal quality monitoring that can reliably assess the quality of a digital signal in as little as 100 picoseconds, thousands of times faster than traditional bit-error rate (BER) or eye diagram testing. The technique compares bit shapes in an all-optical system to detect the combined effects of attenuation, dispersion, noise, and timing jitter. The hardware is simple, compact, and far less expensive than traditional QoS systems. This system allows users of optical links to quickly and accurately assess their data quality. Using this information, more intelligent networks can be designed and implemented.

Potential Applications:

  • Optical performance monitoring
  • Optical routing and switching
  • Digital communication systems (electronic or optical)

Advantages:

  • Compact, simple, inexpensive hardware
  • Orders of magnitude faster than traditional electronic bit error rate measurement
  • Instantaneous monitoring of optical link quality