Student Research Recognized at International Symposium

Photo Submitted

At left: Samir M. El-Ghazaly; top right: Amirreza Ghadimi-Avval; and bottom right: Soheil Nouri.

Two University of Arkansas electrical engineering students and their faculty adviser have been honored for their research into devices designed to be the building block of 5G technology.

Doctoral students Amirreza Ghadimi Avval and Soheil Nouri, and electrical engineering Distinguished Professor Samir El-Ghazaly, received the First-place Best Student-Paper Award from the Mediterranean Microwave Symposium in December 2020.

The Mediterranean Microwave Symposium is an international conference sponsored by the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques (MTT-S) Society and IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (APS). The conference brings together individuals from around the world to present and discuss research work and emerging topics and applications in the field of radio frequency, microwave, millimeter-wave, and terahertz theories and technologies.

The team's paper discussed a new modeling approach applied to a high-frequency transistor. The modeling phase of the device development is a critical step in the pipeline, Ghadimi Avval said.

"We firmly believe that the simulation and modeling stage is an indispensable step in designing every single engineering device and, hence, spending enough time in understanding the physics of the structures is of the utmost importance," he said.

Nouri said this modeling approach is a universal technique and is capable of modeling different devices over a very broad frequency band and various operating modes.

The team's goal was to introduce wave propagation effects in analyzing high-frequency transistors, which Ghadimi Avval said would eliminate significant issues in developing devices for the future of wireless communication systems.

"When you use the simulation as a tool before going through the fabrication stage, you will save a great amount of time, energy, effort, and money," he said. "Moreover, having this tool will ensure that you have the ability to optimize every single aspect of your final circuit."

El-Ghazaly said the recognition was a significant honor.

"That is a great recognition for the students," he said. "It is one of the best indicators for the quality of research they did and results generated so far."

Ghadimi Avval said the group is in the final stage of the simulation process.

"After some optimization and tuning, we will be ready to fabricate our own device according to the optimized layout," he said. "And, we expect the results will introduce a huge improvement to the operation of wireless communication systems."