Lecture by SASA Foreign Member Zoya Popović

’High-Frequency Analogue Circuits for Communication Systems and Sensors’ is the title of the lecture to be delivered by SASA Foreign Member Zoya Popović. The event will take place on Tuesday, 12 May, at the SASA Grand Hall at noon.

Research conducted within the microwave group at the University of Colorado encompasses integrated circuits based on GaAs and GaN semiconductors operating at frequencies from approximately 1 GHz to over 100 GHz; quantum microwave techniques for receivers and miniature atomic clocks; sensors for medical applications; wireless power transmission; and industrial microwave heating.

This lecture offers an overview of several of these diverse research projects, with particular emphasis on passive radiometric measurement of human core body temperature by using microwave receivers operating in the 1–3 GHz range, in combination with near-field antennas that detect thermal noise emitted by the human body, which is directly proportional to temperature. The presentation will include demonstrations of integrated low-noise receiver circuits in gallium arsenide, as well as temperature measurements conducted on both tissue phantoms and biological tissues.

The lecture will also address the design of transmitting analogue millimetre-wave integrated circuits for applications spanning approximately 10 GHz to 100 GHz, developed using GaN semiconductor processes. Special attention will be given to high-efficiency transmitters for modulated signals.

Dr Zoya Popović is Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder (USA). She graduated from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Belgrade in 1985 and received her PhD from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, in 1990. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Carlos III University of Madrid

She has held several distinguished visiting appointments, including as a Humboldt Senior Research Fellow at the Technical University of Munich (2001–2003), at ISAE in Toulouse (2014), as Santander Chair of Excellence at UC3M in Madrid (2018), and at the University of Bologna (2022).

At the University of Colorado Boulder, she has supervised more than 80 doctoral dissertations. She was elected a foreign member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2006.