Fabrication and Characterization of Ag/BN/Ni Microwave Rejection-Band Filters

In this paper, an Ag/BN/Ni microwave tunneling sensor is designed. The device is characterized by means of current-voltage (I-V) characteristics and differential resistance frequency and power dependence in the frequency range 1.0-3.0 GHz. Analysis of the I-V curve revealed a field-assisted thermionic emission (tunneling) of charged particles through a barrier height of 0.81 eV and a depletion width of 0.297 μm. The device exhibits a negative differential resistance effect at low forward biasing voltage (0.2 V). When the device was subjected to an ac signal of power of 0.0 (Bluetooth) to 20.0 wireless local area network (WLAN) dBm in the studied frequency range, it showed an excellent performance as a rejection-band filter that passes all signals below 2.07 and above 2.20 GHz. The output signal quality factor at 1.0 GHz is ~50. The device performance was compared with the results obtained by a MATLAB-based computation program that simulates and reproduces the experimental data using the rejection-band filter equation. The result of the simulator and experiment indicated a high responsivity of the device. The device is promising to be used in microwave transmitters of base stations, in short range high data rate communication systems and in WLANs.