Abstract
A very low-profile sub-THz high-gain frequency beam steering antenna, enabled by silicon micromachining, is reported for the first time in this paper. The operation bandwidth of the antenna spans from 220 to 300 GHz providing a simulated field of view of 56°. The design is based on a dielectric filled PPW leaky-wave antenna fed by a pillbox. The pillbox, a two-level PPW structure, has an integrated parabolic reflector to generate a planar wave front. The device is enabled by two extreme aspect ratio, 16 x 16 mm large perforated membranes, which are only 30 μm thick, that provide the coupling between the two PPWs and form the LWA. The micromachined low-loss PPW structure results in a measured average radiation efficiency of -1 dB and a maximum gain of 28.5 dBi with an input reflection coefficient below -10 dB. The overall frequency beam steering frontend is extremely compact (24 x 24 x 0.9 mm) and can be directly mounted on a standard WM-864 waveguide flange. The design and fabrication challenges of such high performance antenna in the sub-THz frequency range are described and the measurement results of two fabricated prototypes are reported and discussed.
Highlights
T HE availability of radio frequency systems working at sub-THz frequencies has been increasing in the last years due to technological advances improving the performance of both passive waveguide components [1] and active circuits [2] in this frequency range.At the same time, the development of high-performance RF components in the sub-THz region enables new applications that can exploit the large bandwidth available at such high frequency, or the highly-miniaturized RF front-ends resulting from the reduced wavelength
We present for the first time a beam steering front-end working at sub-THz frequencies based on a leaky-wave antennas (LWAs) fed by an integrated quasi-optical beam forming network (BFN)
The emission part of the measurement setup is based on a Virginia Diodes (VDI) TxRef frequency extender, mounted on a roll axis and connected to a linearly polarized rectangular horn as a probe
Summary
T HE availability of radio frequency systems working at sub-THz frequencies (from 100 GHz up to 1 THz) has been increasing in the last years due to technological advances improving the performance of both passive waveguide components [1] and active circuits [2] in this frequency range. Frequency scanned antennas have been shown as a good alternative to mechanically scanned systems due to their lower cost, size, and complexity They cannot provide the entire bandwidth at each individual direction in space, they allow to scan the beam in one direction by changing the working frequency, becoming a good solution when compactness is a priority and the required range resolution is not high. Such systems can be implemented by true-time-delay (TTD) lines or leaky-wave antennas (LWAs), for example, and their use for sub-THz radar applications was demonstrated in the WM864 band by Murano et al [13]. The specific design considerations for the fabrication of such antenna in the sub-THz frequency range are described and the characterization of two manufactured prototypes is presented
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