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Introduction to Microwave by Jalil Ahmed

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Microwave

Microwave are EM waves whose frequencies ranges from approximately 300MHz to 1000 GHz. For comparison, the signal from an AM radio station is about 1 MHz, while that from an FM station is about 100 MHz The higher frequency edge of microwaves borders on the optical spectrum. This accounts for why microwaves behave more like rays of light than ordinary radio waves. You may be familiar with microwave appliances such as the microwave oven, which operates at 2.4 GHz, the satellite television, which operates at about 4 GHz, and the police radar, which works at about 22 GHz. Features that make microwaves attractive for communications include wide available band widths (capacities to carry information) and directive properties of short wavelengths. Since the amount of information that can be transmitted is limited by the available bandwidth, the microwave spectrum provides more communication channels than the radio and TV bands. With the ever increasing demand for channel allocation, microwave communications has become more common. A microwave system1 normally consists of a transmitter (including a microwave oscillator, waveguides, and a transmitting antenna) and a receiver subsystem (including a receiving antenna, transmission line or waveguide, microwave amplifiers, and a receiver). A microwave network is usually an interconnection of various microwave components and devices. There are several microwave components and variations of these components. Common microwave components include: Coaxial cables, which are transmission lines for interconnecting microwave components Resonators, which are usually cavities in which EM waves are stored. Waveguide sections, which may be straight, curved or twisted. Antennas, which transmit or receive EM waves efficiently. Terminators, which are designed to absorb the input power and therefore act as one ports. Attenuators, which are designed to absorb some of the EM power passing through it and thereby decrease the power level of the microwave signal. Directional couplers, which consist of two waveguides and a mechanism for coupling signals between them. Isolators, which allow energy flow only in one direction. Circulators, which are designed to establish various entry/exit points where power can either be fed or extracted. Filters, which suppress unwanted signals and/or separate signals of different frequencies.

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Swedish College of Engineering and Technology Rahim Yar Khan Jalil Ahmed

Introduction to Microwave by Jalil Ahmed

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Uses & Applications of Microwave

The use of microwaves has greatly expanded. Examples include telecommunications, radio astronomy, land surveying, radar, meteorology, UHF television, terrestrial microwave links, solid-state devices, heating, medicine, and identification systems. 1. Telecommunications: (the transmission of analog or digital information from one point to another) is the largest application of microwave frequencies. Microwaves propagate along a straight line like a light ray and are not bent by the ionosphere as are lower frequency signals. This makes communication satellites possible. In essence, a communication satellite is a microwave relay station that is used to link two or more ground-based transmitters and receivers. The satellite receives signals at one frequency, repeats or amplifies it, and transmits it at another frequency. 2. Radar Systems: Radar systems provided the major incentive for the development of microwave technology because one obtains better resolution for radar instruments at higher frequencies. Only the microwave region of the spectrum could provide the required resolution with antennas of reasonable size. The ability to focus a radiated wave sharply is what makes microwaves so useful in radar applications. Radar is used to detect aircraft, guide supersonic missiles, observe and track weather patterns, and control flight traffic at airports. It is also used in burglar alarms, garage-door openers, and police speed detectors. 3. Heating: Microwave energy is more easily directed, controlled, and concentrated than low-frequency EM waves. Also, various atomic and molecular resonances occur at microwave frequencies, creating diverse application areas in basic science, remote sensing, and heating methods. The heating properties of microwave power are useful in a wide variety of commercial and industrial applications. The microwave oven is a typical example. When the magnetron oscillates, microwave energy is extracted from the resonant cavities. The reflections from the stationary walls and the motion of the stirring fan cause the microwave energy to be well distributed. Thus the microwave enables the cooking process to be fast and even. Besides cooking, microwave heating properties are used in physical diathermy and in drying potato chips, paper, cloth, etc. A microwave circuit consists of microwave components such as sources, transmission lines, waveguides, attenuators, resonators, circulators, and filters. One way of analyzing such as a circuit is to relate the input and output variables of each component. Several sets of parameters can be used for relating input and output variables but at high frequencies such as microwave frequencies where voltage and current are not well defined, S-parameters are often used to analyze microwave circuits. The scattering or ^parameters are defined in terms of wave variables which are more easily measured at microwave frequencies than voltage and current.

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Swedish College of Engineering and Technology Rahim Yar Khan Jalil Ahmed

Introduction to Microwave by Jalil Ahmed

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How does a Microwave Oven Works?

Microwaves are radio waves that are roughly around 2,500 MHz, or 2 GHz. These radio waves have the interesting property of being absorbed by water, fats, and sugars. This absorption converts them directly into atomic motion, thus producing heat. It is not the movement of the microwaves themselves that produces heat, but rather the movement of the excited particles in the food. These waves are also not absorbed by most plastics, ceramics, or glass, meaning that objects made from these materials is 'microwave safe'. Metal, on the other hand, will reflect microwaves, causing sparks when one wave bounces into another. A microwave oven will also produce sparks if turned on when nothing is inside the microwave, as the waves themselves will bounce off of each other, having nowhere else to go. The magnetron inside a microwave oven uses magnetic energy to create microwaves. Newer microwaves with inverter technology use circuit boards instead of the old transformer/capacitor style microwaves, which makes the microwave more energy efficient, but the overall function is the same. Unlike a conventional oven, where the heat has to migrate through the food, the heat produced by a microwave is able to cook food evenly, as all of the particles in the food are excited simultaneously. Microwaves do have limits. They may not penetrate between thick pieces of food. Since the microwaves are emitted from only one side of the oven, it is recommended that you use a microwave which contains a spinning plate, to ensure that food cooks evenly. Furthermore, the air in the microwave remains room temperature, so there is no way to form a crust. This is why microwaveable items sometimes come with a cardboard sleeve. The foil in the sleeve reacts to the microwaves by becoming very hot, causing exterior heat on top of the pastry, thus forming a crust. Also, the reason microwaves do not escape out of the little holes in the oven is that microwaves have a wavelength of 12.4 centimeters. Any conducting surface that has holes smaller than that will reflect the microwaves, rather than allowing them to pass through. This allows you to view the items in the microwave while still remaining relatively safe from any potential exposure to radiation. Despite some myths, there are no known health risks from eating microwaved food. Microwave ovens use non-ionizing radiation, which does not mutate your DNA and is not as dangerous as ionizing radiation, such as that found in X-ray machines. However, exposure to microwaves can still burn tissue by heating up the water, fats, and sugars naturally found in human tissues. The eyes are particularly susceptible. For this reason, the FDA recommends that you do not stand directly against your microwave while it is in operation. You should also regularly check your microwave for damage, which may lead to microwave leakage. A microwave accelerates the water molecules in food causing it to increase in temperature.

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Swedish College of Engineering and Technology Rahim Yar Khan Jalil Ahmed

Introduction to Microwave by Jalil Ahmed

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Electromagnetic Spectrum

The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all possible frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. The "electromagnetic spectrum" of an object has a different meaning, and is instead the characteristic distribution of electromagnetic radiation emitted or absorbed by that particular object. The electromagnetic spectrum extends from below the low frequencies used for modern radio communication to gamma radiation at the short-wavelength (high-frequency) end, thereby covering wavelengths from thousands of kilometers down to a fraction of the size of an atom. The limit for long wavelengths is the size of the universe itself, while it is thought that the short wavelength limit is in the vicinity of the Planck length,[2] although in principle the spectrum is infinite and continuous. Nearly all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum are used in science for spectroscopic and other probing interactions, as ways to study and characterize matter. In addition, radiation from various parts of the spectrum has found many other uses for communications and manufacturing (see electromagnetic radiation for more applications). History of electromagnetic spectrum discovery For most of history, light was the only known part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The ancient Greeks recognized that light traveled in straight lines and studied some of its properties, including reflection and refraction. Over the years the study of light continued and during the 16th and 17th centuries there were conflicting theories which regarded light as either a wave or a particle. The first discovery of electromagnetic waves other than light came in 1800, when William Herschel discovered infrared light. He was studying the temperature of different colors by moving a thermometer through light split by a prism. He noticed that the hottest temperature was beyond red. He theorized that there was 'light' that you could not see. The next year, Johann Ritter worked at the other end of the spectrum and noticed that there were 'chemical rays' (rays that induced certain chemical reactions) that behaved similar to, but were beyond, visible violet light rays. They were later renamed ultraviolet radiation. Electromagnetic radiation had been first linked to electromagnetism in 1845, when Michael Faraday noticed that the polarization of light traveling through a transparent material responded to a magnetic field (see Faraday Effect). During the 1860s James Maxwell developed four partial differential equations for the electromagnetic field. Two of these equations predicted the possibility of, and behavior of, waves in the field. Analyzing the speed of these theoretical waves, Maxwell realized that they must travel at a speed that was about the known speed of light. Maxwell's equations predicted many frequencies of electromagnetic waves traveling at the speed of light. Attempting to prove Maxwell's equations, in 1886 Heinrich Hertz built an apparatus to

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Swedish College of Engineering and Technology Rahim Yar Khan Jalil Ahmed

Introduction to Microwave by Jalil Ahmed

generate and detect what we now call radio waves. He was able to observe that they traveled at the speed of light and could be both reflected and refracted. In a later experiment he similarly produced and measured microwaves. These new waves paved the way for inventions such as the wireless telegraph and the radio. In 1895 Wilhelm Rontgen noticed a new type of radiation emitted during an experiment. He called these x-rays and found they were able to travel through parts of the human body but were reflected or stopped by denser matter such as bones. Before long, many uses were found for them in the field of medicine. The last portion of the electromagnetic spectrum was filled in with the discovery of gamma rays. In 1900 Paul Villard was studying radioactivity from radium. He found a new type of radiation that he first thought consisted of particles similar to alpha and beta particles, but far more penetrating. However, in 1910 British physicist William Henry Bragg demonstrated that gamma rays are electromagnetic radiation, not particles, and in 1914, Ernest Rutherford (who had named them gamma rays) and Edward Andrade measured their wavelengths, and found that they were similar to X-rays but with shorter wavelengths and higher frequency, and thus more energy per photon.

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Swedish College of Engineering and Technology Rahim Yar Khan Jalil Ahmed