The present invention relates to a method for cleaning a resonator, in an oscillator, that was previously adjusted to an allocated frequency using a laser, after achieving the prespecified frequency, the resonator being cleaned using the laser, in order to remove deposit products of the removal process.
A method for adjusting a resonator in an oscillator is described in German Patent Application No. DE 101 19 033, which stands out in that a dielectric material as resonator in the oscillator is purposefully removed (ablated) by laser pulses until a targeted frequency is achieved. As the laser, in this case, preferably an excimer laser or a solid-state laser is used.
In this method, it is a disadvantage that, during the removal of the dielectric material, in order to set the frequency of oscillation, a part of these ablation products condenses on the pill-box resonator or on the immediate circuit environment and there forms a dust layer or a firmly adhering condensate film. This deposit first of all lowers the resonator frequency again and leads, especially by slow ablation over the service life of the resonator, to a creeping frequency increase, and thereby to a reliability problem. The usual cleaning methods are not applicable in this case, since the screening box, having only a small aperture to let through the laser beam, does not permit any effective cleaning possibilities.
An object of the present prevention is to provide a method whereby the deposit of the ablation products on the pill-box resonator or on the immediate circuit environment of the pill-box resonator is prevented, in order to avoid a frequency change caused by the dust layer formed or the adhering condensate film, as well as to prevent an additional frequency change during the service life of the product as a result of a slow ablation of this dust layer or the adhering condensate film.
In an advantageous manner, the cleaning of the resonator takes place using the laser, in that the laser is operated at low power. By cleaning the pill-box resonator while using the same laser that is used for the frequency adjustment of the resonator, one achieves that no further apparatus is required for carrying out the closing cleaning process. In this context, the laser is operated at a lower power than during the removal, whereby only the ablation products are removed which have deposited on the pill-box resonator and on the circuit in the direct environment of the resonator.
Furthermore, it is advantageous that the laser power is reduced, in that the laser is operated at a higher pulse frequency than during the resonator adjustment. Since, advantageously, excimer lasers or solid-state lasers are used which work in pulse operation, one is able to increase the laser pulse frequency, which, during the removal amounts to, for instance, 30 kHz to, for instance, 100 kHz, whereby the pulse repetition rate is increased in such a way that the pulse pumping time of the laser level, and consequently the inversion achieved, becomes lower. Therewith the laser power given off also becomes lower. This is particularly advantageous since solid-state lasers are in principle not able to make possible a rapid power change-over within the required clock pulse time by changing the current.
In addition, it is of advantage that, for cleaning the resonator, the pulse frequency of the laser is increased to the extent that the power given off goes down to ⅕ to 1/10 of the laser power during the removal.
It is also of advantage that the area of the pill-box resonator or the circuit processed using the cleaning step is bigger than the area processed during the removal. During laser removal it may be advantageous not to remove the entire resonator surface, but rather leaving unprocessed a small edge area of the upper side of the resonator, having an edge width of ca. 0.1 mm, so that the pill-box resonator keeps its cylindrical shape during the removal, and no splintering off occurs at the edge. During the cleaning step, advantageously, the entire resonator surface is processed, as well as, possibly, the areas of the circuit around the pill-box resonator, so that even deposits on the circuit in the immediate area around the resonator are freed from contamination and condensate films.
Moreover, it is advantageous that, during the laser removal or the laser cleaning, the surroundings are flushed with helium. Since the processing of the pill-box resonator takes place through a small aperture in the cover of the oscillator housing, it is not possible, during the removal or during the cleaning step, to carry off the ablation products by a gas flow, so that it is of advantage to surround the pill-box resonator with helium during the laser processing. Since helium atoms are lighter than air molecules, the evaporated ceramic components are better able to flow away from the pill-box surface and the circuit surface, since the backscattering through the protective gas is less than through air.
Additional features, application possibilities and advantages of the present invention are yielded by the subsequent description of exemplary embodiments of the present invention, which are shown in the figures of the drawings. In this context, all the described or illustrated features per se or in any combination form the subject matter of the present invention, independently of their combination in the claims or their antecedents, as well as independently of their formulation or illustration in the description or in the drawings.
For radar applications, especially in automotive technology, it is necessary to make available an oscillator that generates signals in the gigahertz range. Since, in particular, methods such as Doppler frequency shift are used for the detection of objects, an exact determination and setting of the resonator frequency of the oscillator is necessary. An oscillator has a passive and an active part. The active part, an amplifier is, in this case, a high frequency transistor T, such as is, for instance, an HEMT (high electron mobility transistor) or an HBT (heterobipolar transistor). These transistors are mostly produced from compound semiconductors. The passive part is the resonator. In this case, it is formed by a dielectric material whose electrical equivalent circuit diagram may be formed of resistors, capacitors and inductors, if necessary. In producing the oscillator, the oscillator frequency, that is, the frequency of the signal that the oscillator generates, is made possible by an exact modification of the resonator. Since a dielectric material is used in this case as the resonator, this dielectric material has to be changed by a geometrical adaptation for setting the resonator frequency. This is achieved directly at the resonator circuit by a laser, in that the laser, which is preferably operated in a pulsed fashion, removes the dielectric material. Since the oscillator circuit is closed, using a metallic cover, this metallic cover has a bore through which the laser is able to be directed onto the dielectric material, for the removal.
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