High-sensitivity microwave amplifier detects very weak signals

In the coming years, the European Space Agency (ESA) will be launching a series of new weather satellites that will be able to measure important meteorological data, such as precipitation, water vapor or temperature, better than ever before. The heart of these measuring devices consists of extremely sensitive microwave amplifiers that were developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF. These can perceive even very weak signals from the environment, which are important for more accurate weather predictions.