A Novel Method for the Characterization of Anisotropic Materials

Abstract

This thesis details the successful conceptualization, development, and proof of concept testing of a novel system for the characterization of a material's electromagnetic properties. In particular, the proposed system was designed to allow for the future wideband characterization of the permittivity and permeability of anisotropic solids at oblique angles of incidence. The characterization of these properties is crucial to understanding how a material will perform as a substrate in electronics and RF applications. Various techniques have been developed to characterize these properties for the case of normal incidence based the test material's inductive/capacitive, resonant, and transmission/reflection characteristics. For isotropic materials, the electromagnetic parameters have no angle dependence and normal incidence testing is sufficient. However, the increasingly widespread development and use of inhomogenous composites and artificial dielectrics/diamagnetics has necessitated the development of methods to characterize materials over a range of incidence angles. The proposed system accomplishes this without the limitations of currently existing methods (such as the need for multiple sample configurations or the assumption of non-magnetic behavior).