Class-D amplifiers offer significant potential for achieving efficient and high-power RF amplification. By converting the collector dissipation of conventional amplifiers into load power components and employing filtering to eliminate unwanted frequencies, Class-D amplifiers achieve superior overall efficiency. This study proposes and investigates a high-efficiency push-pull Class-D power amplifier integrated with a carefully designed matching network. To validate the proposed amplifier’s performance and practical applicability, a proof-of-concept circuit was designed and fabricated. Operating within a frequency range of 7.7 –8.7 MHz, the amplifier achieved notable results, including a power-added efficiency of 89.26% and an output power of 49.54 dBm . The consistency between simulated and measured results underscores the reliability of the proposed design and its potential for practical deployment. This work demonstrates the suitability of the amplifier for wireless Radio Frequency Identification applications, offering a highly efficient solution with enhanced output power and performance. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study provides a novel approach to achieving exceptional efficiency and output power, representing a significant advancement in the field of RF power amplifier design.

A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) has been conceived and constructed as a heavy-ion experiment at the LHC. During LHC Runs 1 and 2, it has produced a wide range of physics results using all collision systems available at the LHC. In order to best exploit new physics opportunities opening up with the upgraded LHC and new detector technologies, the experiment has undergone a major upgrade during the LHC Long Shutdown 2 (2019–2022). This comprises the move to continuous readout, the complete overhaul of core detectors, as well as a new online event processing farm with a redesigned online-offline software framework. These improvements will allow to record Pb-Pb collisions at rates up to 50 kHz, while ensuring sensitivity for signals without a triggerable signature.

A novel approach for designing the next generation of vertex detectors foresees to employ wafer-scale sensors that can be bent to truly cylindrical geometries after thinning them to thicknesses of 20-40 µm. To solidify this concept, the feasibility of operating bent MAPS was demonstrated using 1.5 cm× 3 cm ALPIDE chips. Already with their thickness of 50 µm, they can be successfully bent to radii of about 2 cm without any signs of mechanical or electrical damage. During a subsequent characterisation using a 5.4 GeV electron beam, it was further confirmed that they preserve their full electrical unctionality as well as particle detection performance. In this article, the bending procedure and the setup used for characterisation are detailed. Furthermore, the analysis of the beam test, including the measurement of the detection efficiency as a function of beam position and local inclination angle, is discussed. The results show that the sensors maintain their excellent performance after bending to radii of 2 cm, with detection efficiencies above 99.9 % at typical operating conditions, paving the way towards a new class of detectors with unprecedented low material budget and ideal geometrical properties.