Microwave Measurements Laboratory
Overview
Class taught with Ralph Pasquinelli of Fermilab for the USPAS. Students are awarded full credit equivalent to graduate course at the host university. Taught at:
- Duke University 1995
- Beijing, China 1998
- Vanderbuilt University 1999
- Stony Brook 2000
- University of California, Los Angeles 2002
- University of California, Berkeley 2005
- Texas A &M University 2007
- University of California, Santa Cruz 2010
- University of Texas, Austin 2012
- Old Dominion University 2015
Syllabus
The course consists of lectures and hand-on laboratories. Topics of lectures include
- Microwave Measurements in the time and frequency domains, basics of spectrum analyzers, vector signal analyzers, and time domain reflectometer
- Transmission lines, complex impedance, reflection coefficients
- Microwave measurements with a Vector Network Analyzer, basics of vector network analyzers
- Microwave components and devices, splitters, circulators, directional couplers, filters, etc.
- Beam signals for Circular Accelerators, beam spectrums, power spectral density, betatron and synchrotron signals
- Signals, noise, and dynamic range, basic noise performance of devices and systems
- Impedance matching, basic of matching devices
- RF cavity measurements, cavity basics, bead pull, coupling, cavity bandwidth
Hand-on labs include:
| No. | Lab | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Spectrum Analyzer | Measurement of simple signals on a spectrum analyzer to understand resolution bandwidth, video bandwidth, dynamic range, noise, etc. |
| 2. | TDR | Measurement of characteristics of various connector families, transmission lines, complex loads. |
| 3. | Components | Measurement of the s-parameters of a variety of microwave components. |
| 4. | Beam Signals | Utilize an arbitrary function generator to simulate beam signals from the accelerator, AM for betatron signals, FM for synchrotron signals. |
| 5. | Noise | Consists of measuring the noise performance of a microwave amplifier. The amplifier will then be part of a “system” and noise performance of the system will be compared to individual noise performance of the components. |
| 6. | Matching | Design and build a simple single stub transmission line matching circuit. |
| 7. | RF Cavities | Measure mode spectrums of a cavity, the cavity coupling, loaded and unloaded Q, the electric field profile and R/Q of a cavity by the bead pull method. |
| 8. | Vector Signal Analyzer | Use of a vector signal analyzer for measuring Am and FM modulation. |
| 9. | Waveguides | Measurements with LRL 550B Microwave Student Lab. |
| 10. | Mixers | Measurements with double balanced mixers, linearity, conversion loss, intermodulation products. |
Prerequisites: Undergraduate Electromagnetism.
Lectures
| No. | Lecture | Lecturer | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction | Pasquinelli | |
| 2 | Transmission Lines | McGinnis | pdf video1 video2 |
| 3 | Network Analyzer Basics | Pasquinelli | |
| 4 | Spectrum Analyzer Basics | Pasquinelli | |
| 5 | RF Cavities | McGinnis | pdf video |
| 6 | Time Domain Reflectometer | Pasquinelli | pdf video1 video2 |
| 7 | Accelerator Beam Signals | McGinnis | pdf video |
| 8 | Noise in Electronic Systems | Pasquinelli | pdf eqns Agilent video |
| 9 | RF Systems for Accelerators | Pasquinelli | pdf video |
| 10 | Vector Signal Analyzer | Pasquinelli | |
| 11 | Microwave Components | Pasquinelli | |
| 12 | Mixers and Frequency Conversion | Pasquinelli |
Labs
| No. | Lab | Lecturer | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | VSWR measurement with LRL kit | Pasquinelli | |
| 2 | Impedance measurements LRL kit | McGinnis | |
| 3 | Matching with transmission lines | McGinnis | |
| 4 | Spectrum analyzer basics | Pasquinelli | |
| 5 | Measure cavity coupling and Q | McGinnis | |
| 6 | Cavity bead pull measurements | McGinnis | |
| 7 | Use of a TDR | Pasquinelli | |
| 8 | Beam signals | McGinnis | |
| 9 | Noise figure | Pasquinelli | |
| 10 | Vector Signal Analyzer lab | Pasquinelli | |
| 11 | Component measurements | Pasquinelli | |
| 12 | Mixers | Pasquinelli |