Abstract
We report a self-biased, low-profile circulator operating in the Ka-band fabricated by an entirely low-temperature (70 °C) screen-printing approach on printed circuit board (PCB). The magnetic material for the circulator is a barium hexaferrite BaFe12O19 (BaM)/polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) nanocomposite that exhibits a zero-bias ferromagnetic resonance frequency (f <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">FMR</sub> ) at 46.6 GHz. Using this material, a microstrip-based circulator operating at 35 GHz is designed, fabricated, and characterized. A combination of mechanical milling, screen printing, photolithography, and electroplating is used for fabricating the circulator, in which the circulator disk (diameter of 2 mm and thickness of 250 μm) is completely embedded in the PCB, realizing a packaging compatible low-profile architecture with the total device area of 33 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> . The measured isolation (IS) and insertion loss (IL) of the fabricated circulator at 35 GHz is 3.9 and 8.7 dB, respectively. When the additional magnetic bias is applied to the circulator using external permanent magnets, the IS and IL performance is improved to be 7.4 and 8.4 dB, respectively. The impact of the loss factors associated with dielectric loss and surface roughness on the device performance is analyzed using High Frequency Structural Simulator (HFSS).
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
