Physics Colloquium - What can we do with microwave resonators?

Many of us are familiar with various types of resonators including mechanical and acoustic resonators (as in musical instruments) or electromagnetic and optical resonators (as found in lasers). Electromagnetic resonators that exhibit fundamental resonances in the microwave frequency range are termed microwave resonators and are growing in importance for a wide range of applications. Microwave resonators find use in microwave filters and oscillators that enable wireless communications, radar, navigation, remote sensing / spectroscopy, and, of course, food / coffee heating. More advanced applications include the use of these resonators in spacecraft propulsion systems, as well as in superconducting qubits for quantum computation. High quality resonators can be designed with relative ease and fabricated inexpensively. This talk will cover background and fundamentals of microwave resonators, how we design and fabricate them, and the use of room temperature (normal conductor) or low temperature (superconducting) microwave resonators for materials characterization.