A 2D finite difference/Finite Element analysis of reconfigurable mm-wave circuits in the presence of Nematic Liquid Crystals

Author

Polycarpou, A.C. ; Christou, M.A. ; Papanicolaou, N.C.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus

fYear

2013

fDate

8-12 April 2013

Firstpage

2356

Lastpage

2360

Abstract

A robust 2-D formulation for the electrical characterization of Nematic Liquid Crystals (N-LCs) under DC biasing conditions for use in reconfigurable mm-wave circuits is proposed. The finite difference (FD) method is first implemented to solve Poisson´s equation in the domain of interest in order to obtain the governing DC electric field, which affects the local properties of the anisotropic material. Then, the nonlinear Euler-Lagrange differential equation, governing the orientation of the directors, is solved using a FD scheme with relaxation. Once the N-LC layer is characterized, a vector Finite Element (FE) code is used to obtain the modal propagation characteristics of a guiding structure. Tunability of the N-LC at mm-wave frequencies is illustrated for the particular geometry under a low DC bias voltage.

Keywords

Poisson equation; finite difference methods; finite element analysis; liquid crystals; millimetre wave circuits; nonlinear differential equations; 2D finite difference-finite element analysis; DC biasing conditions; DC electric field; FD method; FE code; N-LC; Poisson equation; anisotropic material; electrical characterization; guiding structure; low DC bias voltage; nematic liquid crystals; nonlinear Euler-Lagrange differential equation; reconfigurable mm-wave circuits; robust 2D formulation; vector finite element code; MATLAB; Nematic Liquid Crystals; Numerical Methods; Reconfigurable Materials;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP), 2013 7th European Conference on

Conference_Location

Gothenburg

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-2187-7

Electronic_ISBN

978-88-907018-1-8

Type

conf

Filename

6546714