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UNM’s Center for High Tech Materials works on new concepts and materials for micro- and nanoscale slow-wave structures
April 11, 2019 - by Steve Carr
Francesca Cavallo, an assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the School of Engineering at The University of New Mexico, is working to establish a radical new concept for scaling the operation of traveling wave tubes (TWTs) beyond the microwaves and into THz frequencies.
Cavallo, who also has an appointment at the Center for High Technology Materials (CHTM), was awarded a three-year, $860,000 grant from the Airforce Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) to develop the new concept. Max Lagally and Daniel van der Weide, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, are also part of the team conducting this leading-edge work.
Potential applications of TWTs that operate at mm and sub-mm frequencies include high-spatial-resolution radar and imaging systems; communication with high data rates (5G and beyond); secure wireless communication through broadband mobile-on-the-move technologies using both terrestrial and satellite units; stand-off identification of weapons and explosives; landing aircraft or targeting from aircraft in brownout conditions.
“TWTs are vacuum electronic devices which make satellite communications as well as radio and television broadcasting possible, among the other things” said Cavallo “No solid-state device can provide as much power as a TWT at mm and sub-mm wave frequencies. Nevertheless, application of these devices at frequencies beyond the microwaves is limited by a number of challenges that relate to fabricating devices with the required micro- and nanoscale dimensions to amplify THz radiation.”