Electrically Tunable Phase Shifters With Air-Dielectric Sandwich Structure

Abstract

AbstractElectrically tunable microwave phase shifter was developed by inserting dielectric slab and piezoelectric actuator inside a waveguide. Air-dielectric sandwich structure of dielectric material and thin air gap was placed inside a waveguide, where the thickness of air gap is controlled by the actuator. Small changes in the ratio between the thickness of dielectric material and air gap induce significant changes in the effective dielectric constant of the air-dielectric sandwich structure. Phase shifts of 20∼200 degrees were realized with the dielectric materials such as (Mg, Ca)TiO3 while the thickness of air gap is changed between 0 to 30 μm by piezoelectric control. Since the dielectric ceramics has very small loss (tand ∼ 10-4) and the air gap has practically no loss, the total structure shows low insertion loss.