A novel compact lowpass filter with sharp roll-off and wide stopband

In this paper, a microstrip lowpass filter adopting two main resonators with steep transition band and wide rejection band has been introduced. The first main resonance cell consists of meandered transmission lines which are loaded by modified T-shaped patches. The second main resonator is composed of high-impedance lines loaded by polygon patches. To obtain a steep skirt performance, the first and second resonators have been combined. Moreover, employing eight high–low impedance folded stubs and two rectangular open-stubs as suppressing cells has resulted in improving the stopband features. To comprehend the frequency behavior of the employed resonators and also their combination, the formulas of the transmission coefficient, reflection coefficient, and the transmission zeros of their equivalent LC circuits have been extracted, separately. According to the measurement results, the −3 dB operating frequency of this filter is 1.65 GHz. Moreover, a relative stopband bandwidth equal to 166% with a corresponding attenuation level of 23 dB and a sharp roll-off rate (393.61 dB/GHz) have been achieved. In the passband region from DC to 1.632 GHz, the insertion loss and return loss are better than 0.0763 and 15.85 dB, respectively, proving an acceptable in-band performance. Finally, the implemented structure brings about a high figure-of-merit equal to 81 672.

Resonant Photoacoustic Detection of NO2 with an LED Based Sensor

In times of steadily increasing air pollution especially in urban areas, the monitoring of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) has gained in importance and with it the search for compact, low-cost sensors. We present a novel approach to measure NO2 in sub-ppm concentrations with a photoacoustic sensor utilizing a T-shaped resonance cell. An inexpensive single LED with a peak wavelength of 410 nm was used as radiation source and the acoustic detection was done with a commercial MEMS microphone. For optimal coupling of the divergent LED light into the cell, the T-shaped resonator was developed and fabricated with rapid prototyping methods. The resonator shows a acoustic Q-factor >10 while having nearly no zero gas signal.