One of the trends making its way through the Photovoltaics (PV) industry, is the search for new application possibilities. Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) thin film solar cells stand out due to their class leading power conversion efficiency of 23.35 %, flexibility, and low cost. The use of sub-μm ultrathin CIGS solar cells has been gaining prevalence, due to the reduction in material consumption and the manufacturing time. Precise CIGS finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) and 3D-drift diffusion baseline models were developed for the Lumerical suite and a 1D electrical model for SCAPS, allowing for an accurate description of the optoelectronic behavior and response of thin and ultrathin CIGS solar cells. As a result, it was possible to obtain accurate descriptions of the optoelectronic behavior of thin and ultrathin solar cells, and to perform an optical study and optimization of novel light management approaches, such as, random texturization, photonic nanostructures, plasmonic nanoparticles, among others. The developed light management architectures enabled to push the optical performance of an ultrathin solar cell and even surpass the performance of a thin film solar cell, enabling a short-circuit current enhancement of 6.15 mA/cm2 over an ultrathin reference device, without any light management integrated.

As comunicações móveis têm tido um crescimento vertiginoso nos últimos tempos, motivado pela flexibilidade e mobilidade que estes serviços de telecomunicações podem oferecer. Com o aparecimento de novas bandas de frequência é importante estudar e desenvolver antenas para terminais móveis que possam ser uma boa alternativa às já existentes, como por exemplo o monopolo, e que apresentem características inovadoras quer ao nível da geometria e dimensões, quer ao nível das suas propriedades eléctricas. O objectivo principal desta dissertação de Mestrado é pois estudar, modelar, projectar, construir e testar uma antena para um terminal móvel para a banda de 1.91 a 2.20GHz. O trabalho está dividido em três partes. Na primeira parte é feito o estudo do estado da arte em relação a antenas para terminais móveis. Este estudo levou-nos a considerar a PIFA (Planar Inverted-F Antenna) como o tipo de antena mais promissor face aos requisitos exigidos. Na segunda parte, é explicado com algum pormenor um dos métodos computacionais mais usados neste tipo de problemas, o FDTD (Finite Difference Time Domain). Nesta parte é também explicado o modo como foi construída uma ferramenta, baseada neste método, e destinada a analisar a antena a construir. Na última parte são apresentados diversos resultados de simulações que permitiram projectar e testar um protótipo, do qual também se apresentam resultados medidos. A comparação entre os resultados teóricos e os medidos permitiram validar o simulador desenvolvido. Finalmente são apresentadas algumas das conclusões retiradas ao longo desta dissertação.

This paper presents the results of measurements and simulations of the characteristics of 900 MHz band radio propagation channels in a tunnel environment. The simulations were made using the FDTD method (with companion UPML) and measurements made use of the swept frequency technique. Another method, the metaheuristic Simulated Annealing, was implemented for estimating the values of characteristic parameters of materials. The FDTD code was reformulated for use with CUDA with the objective of decreasing program running time.

This research aims to study the effect of the modification in the Building Block Shape (BBS) on the frequency response of Sierpinski three dimensional pre-fractal antenna using conventional circuit analysis. Three different shapes of BBS's are used to build the antenna. The surface current is analyzed and compared for every BBS. A simple model was devised using the nodal analysis to provide an iterative method for calculating the distribution of currents and voltages for the antenna at every node. The antennas parameters such as Y-parameter, Input Return Loss (IRL), delivered power and surface current are investigated at the first and third tuning frequencies to enhance the perspective of the BBS effect.

Design and analysis of a 35 GHz metal photonic band gap (PBG) resonant cavity operating in the TE041-like mode has been presented. The dispersion characteristics of a 2D metal PBG structure comprising of triangular array of rods has been obtained using FDTD method. Global band gap regions have been obtained to be used for the PBG cavity design. A mode map has been also generated to examine the occurrence of the possible modes in the PBG cavity. Electromagnetic simulation of the designed PBG cavity has been performed to study the operating modes and quality factors. Role of the number of metal rods layers around the defect in PBG structure has also been illustrated for confining the desired mode and deciding the diffractive quality factor. PBG cavity results have been compared with the analogous cylindrical cavity for the designed mode along with the possible nearby modes to examine the mode competition. It has been found that the mode competition has been successfully reduced in designed PBG cavity and nearly a single mode operation is achieved. It is hoped that present study would be useful for the application of the metal PBG structures in the Gyrotron devices to alleviate the mode competition problem while operating in the higher order modes.

In this paper, Specific Absorption Rates (SAR) inside the human head and hand have been analyzed for a handheld mobile phone operated at GSM 900 band. Both the head and hand are modeled electrically using Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) formatted CT Scan voxel data considering the electrical parameters of different internal anatomical structures. Three-dimensional Finite Difference in Time Domain (FDTD) method has been used to simulate SAR induced in the head and hand. Maximum peak 1-g and 10-g SARs of 1.33 W/kg and 0.388 W/kg are found at antenna resonance frequency of 930 MHz for 0.6 W applied input power which are below the limits set by ANSI/IEEE and FCC, respectively.

AbstractThe definition of parameters that characterize the radiation of electric and magnetic fields for antennas in the time and frequency domain on an unified representation is proposed. The formulation uses a straightforward semi-analytical formulation that can be subsequently applied on the analysis of excited antennas for an arbitrary source with temporal behavior. The effective height is a parameter for antenna analysis defined for quantities in far field region and can be used as a transfer function of the antenna. This transfer function can be described through the antenna singularities which can be obtained by singularity expansion. The Singularity Expansion Method (SEM) is capable to model an electromagnetic quantity with the singularities extracted by the current densities of an arbitrary object. This work proposes that the singularities are extracted by the Matrix Pencil method applied on the current densities. The current densities are obtained numerically through the method of the Finite Differences in the Time Domain (FDTD) for wired log-periodic antenna and, after the singularities are obtained, the formulation of the semi-analytical effective height equation is written. To validate the presented method, a formulation of the time-domain radiation pattern is presented and a corresponding frequency-domain radiation pattern is also presented using Parseval’s theorem.

The microwave heating is largely used on industry, for treatment of ores and wood drying, and on food production. Besides this industry use, researches applied to cancer cells treatment, demonstrates that the microwave heating is more effective than regular procedures, such as, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, because it is a directional action and does not presents the same side effects amount. This work aims to develop a numeric model using FDTD in order relate the microwave spread, with the dielectric material heating on industry applications, standing as a base to future development of a software, which can study the microwave effects on these applications. Initially the basic issues involving the propagation of electromagnetic waves are discussed, as well as the equation that govern it. Then the mathematical treatment is performed, in order to related the known parameters to those obtained on the simulation. Lastly, experiments based in the simulated medium were performed, for the purpose of verify the error presented on the developed model. Those experiments allowed to conclude that the results numerically given, serve as a reference to situations where high precision is not necessary on the final temperature of the dielectric medium

Dois dispositivos de comunicação sem fio populares são considerados nesta pesquisa. Em primeiro lugar, o fone de ouvido que utiliza tecnologia Bluetooth, sendo um dos acessórios móveis mais econômicos do mercado e os óculos para dispositivos de comunicação que são uma representação da nova visão futurista. A absorção de ondas eletromagnéticas na cabeça humana durante um certo período de tempo, pode conduzir a problemas de saúde. A Taxa de Absorção Específica (SAR) foi simulada em quatro modelos diferentes para duas abordagens que realizam variações nos parâmetros dielétricos dos tecidos da cabeça. Estes resultados foram comparados com as recomendações internacionais (IEC 62209-2, 2010; ICNIRP, 2009; IEEE C95.1,2005; WHO, 2006; IEEE, 2002). O primeiro modelo utilizado foi o Manequim Antropomórfico Específico (SAM phantom), bem como três modelos realistas de cabeça humana (ou seja, um adulto de 34 anos e duas crianças de 10 e 6 anos). As simulações foram executadas utilizando o método de diferenças finitas (FDTD) e a frequência usada para alimentar as antenas foi de 2,45 GHz. Além disso foram feitas medidas experimentais de potência transmitida pelo dispositivo Bluetooth.