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GaN/Si Lumped-Element SAW Duplexers for Satellite Telecommunications above 7 GHz

Project type: Experimental Demonstrative Project
Project duration: 23.10.2020-22.10.2022
Project budget: 584.950 RON
Domain project: INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES, SPACE AND SECURITY

Team

Dr. Alina-Cristina Bunea ([email protected])

Dr. Alina-Cristina Bunea received the B.Sc. (2009), M.Sc. (2011) and Ph.D. (2016) degrees from the “Politehnica” University of Bucharest, Romania. Her PhD thesis entitled “Contributions to Millimeter Wave Antennas For Imaging Applications”, focused on the design and characterization of high-performance antennas for a single pixel passive receiver front-end for imaging applications.

She is currently working as a senior research scientist at the National Institute of R&D in Microtechnologies (IMT) Bucharest, where she is involved in the design, 3D electromagnetic modeling and characterization of passive and active microwave circuits (antennas, filters, resonators, membrane supported transmission lines, RF-MEMS switches, surface/bulk acoustic resonators). Other interests include substrate integrated waveguides, design and modeling of millimeter wave structures for the LTCC technology, system-in-package approaches using 3D printing and the use of graphene in microwave and millimeter wave passive structures.
She was involved as a key team member in over 15 national and international research projects and has authored over 60 peer reviewed publications

(https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=E9spLiYAAAAJ&hl=en)

KEY PERSONS:

Dr. Dan Neculoiu ([email protected])

Dr. Dan Neculoiu graduated the Polytechnical Institute of Bucharest, Faculty of Electronics in 1985; PhD degree in 1997. As a senior scientist at IMT-Bucharest, his main research areas are the electromagnetic simulations for the design and modelling of microwave circuits, membrane supported millimetre wave filters, antennae and receiver modules. He participated in the FP4 Project “MEMSWAVE” and in FP6 NoE in RF-MEMS “AMICOM”.

Now he is the head of the Romanian team in the FP7 project MEMS-4-MMIC. He is the author of more than 100 papers published in journals and Conference Proceedings in the area of RF-MEMS. Dr Dan Neculoiu is also full professor at the “Politehnica” University Bucharest.

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Dr. Alexandru Muller ([email protected]) extended CV and publication list available here

He obtained M.Sc.in physics (1972) and PhD in Semiconductor Physics at Bucharest University in 1990;
In the early years of his career he worked on the design manufacturing and characterization of silicon microwave diodes (varactor, pin, multiplier SRD’s) and GaAs Schottky diodes, developing new innovative technological processes and high performance devices used in various industrial applications.

His PhD thesis was focused on a new physical model describing the switching behavior of narrow base pin diodes. This model was used in the optimization of the efficiency of microwave step recovery multiplier diodes. Results have been partially published in Solid State Electronics vol 32, pp. 593-601, 1989 (A Muller and S Voinigescu "Heavy doping ftfects and stored charge characteristics in narrow base PIN diodes").

Competences
- Silicon, GaAs and GaN micromachining and nanoprocessing, manufacturing of RF MEMS components and circuits, manufacuring of microwave passive membrane supported circuits, micromachined inductors, filters and antennae, monolithically as well as hybrid integrated receiver modules.

- developing acoustic devices (SAWs and FBARs) based on micromachining and nanoprocessing of wide bandgap semiconductors (GaN, AlN). The performances of the SAW and FBAR structures on GaN represent the actual state of the art in the topics. Results were published in IEEE El Dev. Lett. in 2009 and 2010. Dr Muller is now involved in developing of temperature and humidity sensors based on GaN GHz SAW and FBAR structures.

- In the last years Dr. Müller was involved in characterization techniques of microwave semiconductor devices and acoustic devices at cryogenic temperatures (1.5 – 6K) with/without magnetic field and also regarding devices, technology and characterization techniques for the quantum computing domain.

Publications
Dr Muller has published a few tens of papers in high ranked ISI journals like IEEE Electron Dev. Letters, Applied Optics, Thin Film Solids, Appl Phys Lett, Journ. of Micromech. and Microengng, IEEE Trans on MTT, Superlatice & Microstructures etc.. In most of them he was the first author. Dr Muller has more 100 papers in conference proceedings, and has written chapters in books published in Spriger, Francis &Taylor," Editura Academiei" printing houses.

Dr. Muller is reviewer at Elsevier, IoP and IEEE journals.

Dr. Muller is member of PhD Jury in “Politehnica” Univ. Bucharest, Univ. Bucharest and Univ. Paul Sabatier/ LAAS Toulouse.

Long term stages abroad:
- a six month stage in 1991/1992 at IMEC Leven;
- a six month stage at LAAS CNRSToulouse at Director de recherce (2003);

European Projects coordinator:
coordinator of the the European FP4 „MEMSWAVE” project (1998-2001), one of the first RF-MEMS projects financed by the EC. The project was nominated in 2002 between the 10 finalists for the Descartes prize of the EC. This was the first and for a long time the only EC project in the IST topics coordinated by an Eastern European country.
coordinator of the FP7 REGPOT- MIMOMEMS (2008 – 2011) “European Centre of Excellence in Microwave, Millimetre Wave and Optical Devices, based on Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems for Advanced Communication Systems and Sensors”.
coordinator of the H2020 Marie Curie project “Integrated Crossbar of Microelectromechanical Selectors and Non-Volatile Memory Devices for Neuromorphic Computing” SelectX (2016-2018).
coordinator of the ESA (European Space Agency) project: Contract No. 40000115202/15/NL/CBi “Microwave filters based on GaN/Si  SAW resonators, operating at frequencies above 5 GHz” (2015-2017).

Dr A Muller was and is the leader of the Romanian team in:
- FP6 NoE AMICOM, 2004-2007, coordinator LAAS Toulouse.
- FP7 Integrated Project NANOTEC, 2011-2015, coordinator Thales TRT.
- FP7 Integrated Project SMARTPOWER, 2011-1016, coordinator Thales TRT.
- FP7 related projects ( ENIAC SE2A (coordinator NXP Semiconductor Netherlands BV), MERCURE (coordinator Thales Research and Technology, France).
H2020 FETOPEN CHIRON, 2018 – 2021, coordinator IMEC Belgium
H2020 FETOPEN IQubits, 2019 -2023, coordinator Aarhus Univ. Denmark

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Dr. Adrian Dinescu obtained the M.Sc. degree (1993) and the PhD degree (2010), from Faculty of  Physics, University of Bucharest. Between 1993 and 1997, Adrian Dinescu was with the National Institute for Research in Electronic Components, working in the field of optoelectronic devices: fabrication and measurements.
Since 1997 Dr, Dinescu is with IMT-Bucharest, where he is currently involved in micro and nano fabrication. His expertise includes: e-beam lithography, thin film deposition by e-beam evaporation, field emission scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy. From 2012 to 2017 Dr. Dinescu acted as Technical Director and from 2017 he is the general manager of IMT.

Dr. Adrian Dinescu coordinated 10 national research projects, one H2020 project and was the coordinator from the Romanian part of the FP-7 project. He co-authored about 75 papers in refereed international journals.

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Dr. Alexandra Nicoloiu (Stefanescu) ([email protected])

Dr. Alexandra Nicoloiu (Stefanescu) graduated from Politehnica University of Bucharest, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, in 2006 and obtained her PhD in 2010. She participated as a team member in several national and European projects (FP6, FP7, ESA, ENIAC). She joined IMT-Bucharest in 2009 in the frame of the FP7 MIMOMEMS. Between 2012 – 2016 Dr. Alexandra Nicoloiu was partner team leader in a national project (Partnership) dedicated to advanced methodologies for the simulation of RF-MEMS switches and between 2015 – 2017 she coordinated a national project (Human resources, Young Research Teams). Her current research activities focus mostly on the numerical analysis and experimental development of GHz acoustic devices on WBG materials (GaN, AlN) working as sensors.

She is involved in the team of two H2020 FET-OPEN projects dedicated to spin waves for quantum computing. In H2020 CHIRON project (2018 – 2021) she is involved in the development of magnetic sensors based on SAW devices on GaN/Si working at frequencies around 10 GHz. She is the (co-) author of more than 40 papers in journals and conference proceedings; h-index 8 (Google Scholar).

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News

Results 2022

Results

Results 2021; Results 2020

 


Financing agency: Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding – UEFISCDI (www.uefiscdi.gov.ro)

PN III, Programme 2 – Increasing the competitivity of the Romanian economy through research, development and innovation; Subprogramme 2.1. Competitivity through research, development and innovation, Project type: Experimental Demonstrative Project
Contract no. PED 422/23.10.2020 (code: PN-III-P2-2.1-PED-2019-2041)

 

Coordinating Institution: National Institute for Research and Development in Microtechnologies – IMT Bucharest (www.imt.ro)
Project Leader: Dr. Alina-Cristina BUNEA
Email: [email protected]