Inkjet-Printed Ferrite Substrate-Based Vialess Waveguide Phase Shifter

Abstract

Magnetically controlled waveguide-based phase shifters are desirable for their high performance, but are bulky and heavy, thus cannot be easily integrated with printed circuit board (PCB) based circuits. To tackle this, substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW) technology has been utilized, which brings the waveguide to a standard PCB, but requires large numbers of vias as well as multiple cavities in the substrate for ferrite slab placement. This implementation technique involves complex fabrication and yields a relatively low figure of merit (FoM). To alleviate this, we present the first completely vialess ferrite substrate-based waveguide phase shifter realized through low-cost inkjet printing technique. All the four sides of a yttrium iron garnet (YIG) substrate have been metalized through inkjet printing, allowing the fabrication of a conventional rectangular waveguide on a standard magnetic substrate. The prototype has been tested in symmetric as well as antisymmetric modes of biasing and peak FoMs of 160°/dB at 7.22 GHz and 332°/dB at 7.46 GHz have been measured, which are higher than those of the previously reported designs. This all-around inkjet printing approach can open the door to low-cost, integrable magnetic phase shifters with excellent RF performances.