MASc seminar - Abdulaziz Alqahtani

Candidate

Abdulaziz Alqahtani

Title

Electrically Small Probe for Near-field Detection Applications

Supervisor

Ramahi, Omar M.

Abstract

The microwave near-field detection technique is of interest to many researchers for characterizing materials because of its high sensitivity. It is based on sensing buried objects by producing an evanescent field. The advantage of evanescent fields is their capability to interrogate electrically small objects. In the past, near-field probes have been designed to sense magnetic materials. For dielectric materials, a near-field probe that senses the permittivity of the materials is important. This work presents a novel design of a near-field probe that generates a dominant electric field. The probe is an electrically small dipole measuring approximately 0.07? in length operating at 216.3 MHz. The antenna is matched to a 50? system using two chip inductors distributed symmetrically on the dipole. The numerical and measurement results show that the proposed design is highly sensitive and capable of sensing subsurface object. The proposed design is compact, lightweight and applicable for microwave applications.