Gallium-Based Liquid Metal Substrate Integrated Waveguide Switches

Abstract

This letter presents a new approach for reconfiguring substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) devices. It involves allowing or prohibiting the wave propagation by using a removable wall which is built from a series of drill holes. When the wall is required, the holes are filled with gallium-based liquid metal (LM), thus forming vias. When the wall is no longer required, the holes are emptied of LM. The method has been applied to a single-pole single-throw (SPST) SIW switch as well as a single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch. Both switches perform well over a wide frequency bandwidth, approaching one octave. The SPST switch performs well from 2.4 to 4.3 GHz. In the ON-state (i.e., wall removed), the insertion loss (IL) is ≤0.5 dB. In the OFF-state (i.e., wall inserted), the isolation is 30 dB. The SPDT switch operates effectively from 4.7 to 7.2 GHz. The IL, between two connected ports, is 0.7 dB. The isolation between unconnected ports is 40 dB. The proposed approach will be applicable within a wide range of different reconfigurable microwave devices.