Planar microwave sensors are considered an attractive choice to non-invasively probe the dielectric attributes of biological tissues due to their low cost, simple fabrication, miniature scale, and minimum risk to human health. This paper develops and measures a novel microwave biosensor for non-invasive real-time monitoring of glucose level. The design comprises a rectangular plexiglass channel integrated on a triple-pole complementary split ring resonator (TP-CSRR). The proposed sensor operates in the centimeter-wave range 1 — 6 GHz and is manufactured using PCB on top of an FR4 dielectric substrate. The sensor elements are excited via a coupled microstrip transmission-line etched on the bottom side of the substrate. The integrated CSRR-based sensor is used as a near-field probe to non-invasively monitor the glucose level changes in the blood mimicking solutions of clinically relevant concentrations to Type-2 normal diabetes (70 — 120 mg/dL), by recording the frequency response of the harmonic reflection and transmission resonances. This indicates the sensor's capability of detecting small variations in the dielectric properties of the blood samples that are responsive to the electromagnetic fields. The proposed sensor is verified through practical measurements of the fabricated design. Experimental results obtained using a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) demonstrate a sensitivity performance of about 6.2 dB/(mg/ml) for the developed triple-pole sensor that significantly outperforms the conventional single-pole and other proposed sensors in the literature in terms of the resonance amplitude resolution.

This paper presents the design and performance of a single-ended transimpedance amplifier (TIA) for gigabit passive optical networks implementing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing modulation format. The circuit is realized using an industrial GaAs integrated technology. Low power consumption and small chip area are the main challenges in the TIA design. On-wafer characterization in terms of S-parameters, noise figure, gain compression, and intermodulation are presented and compared to simulated results showing a good agreement. The TIA is linked with a broadband PIN photodiode and introduced in a radio over fiber system. The optical link is simulated in a microwave software and characterized in terms of error vector magnitude by varying the radio frequency input power and the laser bias current.