STACKED PATCH EXCITED HORN ANTENNA AT 94 GHz

Rownak Shireen, T. Hwang, Shouyuan Shi, and Dennis W. Prather Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716; Corresponding author: shireen@eecis.udel.edu Received 10 December 2007 ABSTRACT: This article presents wideband transition from coplanar waveguide (CPW) to horn antenna (CPWHA) based on slot-coupled stacked patch antenna technique. Multiple patches are used to excite the fundamental mode into the rectangular waveguide. The antenna provides an efcient solution to vertical integration with optoelectronic devices on lithium niobate (LN) for the applications of millimeter-wave (mmW) to optical signal processing. The design is optimized using 3D nite element method (FEM) software HFSS. For 10 dB return loss, 30% bandwidth is achieved centered at 94 GHz. The return loss and far-eld radiation pattern of fabricated CPWHA are measured and has been found in very good agreement with the simulated results. 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 50: 20712074, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley. com). DOI 10.1002/mop.23562 Key words: CPW; stacked patch; horn antenna; mmW

Figure 6 Simulated and measured radiation patterns of Ka-band antenna at 35 GHz. [Color gure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at www.interscience.wiley.com]

design method can equally be applicable for the design of other wideband antennas for phased arrays and power combining as well as millimeter-wave imaging systems.

1. INTRODUCTION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported by the National Fusion Research Center.

REFERENCES 1. A.A. Eldek, Ultrawideband double rhombus antenna with stable radiation patterns for phased array applications, IEEE Trans Antennas Propag 55 (2007), 84 91. 2. Y. Qian, W.R. Deal, N. Kaneda, and T. Itoh, Microstrip fed quasi-Yagi antenna with broadband characteristics, Electron Lett 34 (1998), 2194 2196. 3. N. Kaneda, W.R. Deal, Y. Qian, R. Waterhouse, and T. Itoh, A broadband planar quasi-Yagi antenna, IEEE Trans Antennas Propag 50 (2002), 1158 1160. 4. N.I. Dib, R.N. Simons, and L.P.B. Katehi, New uniplanar transitions for circuit and antenna applications, IEEE Trans Microwave Theory Tech 43 (1995), 2868 2873. 5. Y. Qian and T. Itoh, A broadband uniplanar microstrip-to-CPS transition, in Proceedings of Asia Pacic Microwave Conference Digest, 1997, Hong Kong, China, pp. 609 612. 6. Y.G. Kim, Y.G. Kim, D.S. Woo, K.W. Kim, and Y.K. Cho, A new ultra-wideband microstrip-to-CPS transition, IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium, Honolulu, HI, 2007, pp. 15631566. 7. W.L. Stutzman and G.A. Thiele, Antenna theory and design, Wiley, New York, 1998. 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Electromagnetic spectrum in the millimeter-wave (mmW) range has recently become a popular topic of investigation because of its unique property of high transmission through atmospheric obscurance like clouds, smoke, and thin dielectrics. As such, mmW can be used in imaging for spectroscopy, low visibility conditions, and security measures. A novel detection technique based on the electro-optic conversion of mmW energy into sidebands of an optical carrier was introduced in [1]. Two of the key components of this detection technique are electro-optic modulator and high-gain antenna to capture mmW radiation and upconvert to optical domain for signal processing. The focus of this article is to design an antenna that will meet the specic requirements of imaging applications. The modulators with operational bandwidth up to 100 GHz are typically based on coplanar waveguide (CPW) structure patterned on the electro-optic material LN. To simplify integration with modulator CPW-fed antenna is chosen for the design. Horn antenna is used to improve the gain of the imaging system. Although the optoelectronic circuit is based on planar fabrication technology, metallic waveguide is needed to feed the horn antenna. Hence, transition from CPW to rectangular waveguide is critical for efcient integration especially in the mmW frequency range. Several CPW to waveguide transitions were reported in the past. The transitions using tapered n-line [2], slotline probe [3], or in-line transition using rectangular probe [4] provide reasonably good characteristics but they all require truncation of the planar circuits. These transitions are not suitable for antenna array conguration from the fabrication and integration points of view. The design presented in [5] is compact but has very narrow operation bandwidth, which is not sufcient for highly sensitive mmW detection. In this article, a novel transition from CPW to horn antenna is proposed for integration with mmW/optical receiver circuit. The design is based on slot coupling and stacked patch antenna technique to enhance impedance bandwidth.

DOI 10.1002/mop

MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 50, No. 8, August 2008

2071

2. ANTENNA DESIGN

As we know, a single-slot coupled patch antenna gives 10 dB return loss bandwidth of 510%, which signicantly reduces the overall system bandwidth. To overcome this problem, multiple patches are used to achieve the desired working bandwidth. The resonance from the two patches is partly overlapped by careful designing and thus broadband is achieved. The coupling of the two patches generates two new resonances, one below and one above the former independent ones. The conguration of a CPW fed stacked patch with a horn antenna is shown in Figure 1. The antenna consists of a CPW to waveguide transition with two patches that offers wide bandwidth and a high-gain horn antenna. The signal and gap width of CPW are chosen to give 50- impedance on an anisotropic z-cut LN substrate. Thick electrodes are used to reduce the conductor loss. A thin layer of SiO2 is introduced between CPW and LN substrate to lower the microwave index and thus help in minimizing the electrical loss, which could occur due to phase match mode coupling between the CPW mode and the off axis substrate modes. The mmW energy is coupled to the patch through a square slot loop placed at the end of CPW. The patches and the slot loop are centered with respect to each other. Fundamental TE10 mode is excited by the radiated eld of patch antennas and also by the surface wave mode of the antenna substrates placed inside the waveguide. With this specic geometry, mmW power is transferred efciently from the CPW to the waveguide. The waveguide gradually takes the form of a square horn antenna to match impedance of the waveguide to that of free space. The are angle is adjusted to obtain required narrow beamwidth pattern to reduce interference from the adjacent array elements. In the CPW to waveguide transition, its location in the horn are responsible for

Figure 2

Simulated radiation pattern of stacked patch antenna at 94 GHz

the impedance matching, whereas the length and the are angle of the horn determine the radiation pattern [6].
3. SIMULATION SETUP

Figure 1 Conguration of a stacked patch fed horn antenna: (i) horn antenna (lh 8 mm, wh 8 mm, hh 8 mm); (ii) waveguide (lg wg 2.2 mm, hg 0.85 mm); (iii) top patch (lu wu 835 m); (iv) patch substrate 1 ( r 2.2, tan 0.0009, h1 127 m); (v) bottom patch (ll wl 830 m); (vi) patch substrate 2 ( r 2.2, tan 0.0009, h2 127 m); (vii) coupling slot (ls ws 310 m); (viii) CPW (w 8 m, g 25 m); (ix) LN substrate ( x 45, z 28, tan 0.004, h3 300 y m)

The objective of the simulations is to design and optimize the performance of CPWHA in terms of patch sizes, spacing between the patches, length and cross section of rectangular waveguide, and horn antenna. The antenna is modeled in three steps. At rst, the top and bottom patch sizes are varied to optimize the two coupling effects: one between the slot loop and the bottom patch and the other between the two patches. Then the transmission characteristics of CPW to waveguide transition are studied for different waveguide dimensions. Lastly, the horn antenna is designed to achieve the desired directivity. The performance of the stacked patch antenna depends on the relative permittivity and thickness of the patch substrates. The substrate heights of the lower and upper patch antennas, h1 127 m and h2 127 m, are used for all the parametric analyses. Low dielectric constant material ( r 2.2) is chosen for the antenna substrates for better radiation efciency. The optimum return loss bandwidth is achieved by varying the upper and lower patch sizes as well as the square slot loop. Slot aperture excitation is dominated by magnetic coupling mechanism. Best coupling is achieved through a slot placed near the center of the bottom patch where the magnetic eld is maximum for rst radiating mode TM10. The patch is mainly excited by the loop edges parallel to the radiating sides [7]. Figure 2 shows the simulated radiation pattern from the two patches. The gain of the stacked patches is 5.5 dB with front to back ratio of 9 dB. To further improve the directivity of the stacked patches, horn is incorporated in the design. The horn antenna is composed of two sections: rectangular waveguide and slant horn. The waveguide plays an important role of matching impedance between the horn and the stacked patches. The length and the cross section of waveguide are adjusted to have minimum insertion loss from CPW to waveguide transitions. At rst, the aperture of the waveguide is varied for a xed waveguide length hg 0.79 mm, which is about a quarter of a wavelength at center frequency. The minimum insertion loss is obtained for aperture size of 2.2 mm 2.2 mm. Next the inuence of waveguide length is observed by keeping the aperture size xed. The optimized length is found to be 0.85 mm. For horn antenna design, the length and the aperture are controlled to improve the antenna directivity.

2072

MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 50, No. 8, August 2008

DOI 10.1002/mop

Figure 4 Simulated and measured return loss of CPWHA

Figure 3 Fabricated (a) loop antenna, (b) stacked patch antenna on the loop, and (c)stacked patch antenna integrated with the horn

4. FABRICATION

To validate the computed performance, a prototype of the proposed design is fabricated (Figure 3). At rst, 1- m thick SiO2 buffer layer is deposited by employing PECVD (plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition) on a 300- m thick LN substrate. The conducting material for the electrode is chosen to be gold. To obtain good adherence on the SiO2 layer a titanium layer is evaporated before the gold seed layer. SU-8 photoresist is used to form the template for CPW with slot loop pattern using standard photolithography technique. Then 20- m thick electroplated gold electrodes are grown at a rate of 2.5 m/h. After electroplating, the photoresist is stripped using piranha solution (H2SO4: H2O2, 3:1). Titanium and gold seed layers are removed using their respective wet etchants. Both patches are etched on Duroid 5880 substrates. Then two substrates are attached together by applying a very thin layer of glue. Alignment marks are used to simplify the placement of the patch substrates with respect to the slot pattern on LN. The patch substrates have the same dimension as the waveguide aperture so that they can be tted into the waveguide. Horn with the rectangular waveguide section is CNC (computer numerical control) machined from a single copper block. A small window is cut from the waveguide to prevent shortening of CPW signal and ground electrodes. The length of the waveguide section is made longer than the computed value to compensate for the antenna substrate heights.
5. MEASURMENT

The transition bandwidth from CPW to waveguide is 80 110 GHz for 10 dB return loss as shown in Figure 4. Two resonances located at 88 and 103 GHz can be clearly observed. With the merged resonant peaks, the overall operation bandwidth is expanded up to 30%. We can notice that the resonance peak from the two patches is slightly shifted from the simulated results due to misalignment of the two patches. The radiation pattern of CPWHA is measured in both E-plane and H-plane with goniometer (Figure 5). The angular movement of the goniometer is restricted to the vertical plane and the range is from 45 to 45. The gain of the horn antenna is found to be 12 dB with half-power beamwidth (HPBW) around 13 in both planes.
6. CONCLUSIONS

A high-gain and wide bandwidth antenna centered at 94 GHz has been proposed using stacked patch excited horn. Simulated and experimental results are provided to prove the concept. For a return loss of 10 dB, about 30% bandwidth is achieved for CPWHA. The horn antenna improved gain of the stacked patch by 6.5 dB. This transition is optimally compatible with extended integrated circuits, as the metal waveguide structure is situated only at one side of the transmission line circuit.

The experimental setup is calibrated in two steps. To measure the return loss of the antenna, G-S-G probe is calibrated at the tip by using the on-wafer short, open, and load standards supplied by the probe manufacturer. The gain is calibrated with a known standard gain horn antenna. Because the horn antenna has a WR10 waveguide connector, the additional loss through the probe has to be taken into account to achieve accurate gain calibration at the probe tip.

Figure 5 Radiation pattern of CPWHA at 94 GHz

DOI 10.1002/mop

MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 50, No. 8, August 2008

2073

REFERENCES 1. C.A. Schuetz, J. Murakowski, G.J. Schneider, and D.W. Prather, Radiometric millimeter-wave detection via optical upconversion and carrier suppression, IEEE Trans Microwave Theory Tech 53 (2005), 1732 1738. 2. V.S. Mottonen, Wideband coplanar waveguide-to-rectangular waveguide transition using n-line taper, IEEE Microwave Wireless Compon Lett 15 (2005), 119 121. 3. T.-H. Lin and R.-B. Wu, CPW to waveguide transition with tapered slotline probe, IEEE Microwave Wireless Compon Lett 11 (2001), 314 316. 4. V.S. Mottonen and A.V. Raisanen, Novel wide-band coplanar waveguide-to-rectangular waveguide transition, IEEE Trans Microwave Theory Tech 52 (2004), 1836 1842. 5. T. Cavanna, E. Franzese, E. Limiti, G. Pelosi, S. Selleri, and A. Suriani, Coplanar-to-rectangular waveguide millimeter-wave transitions manufacturing tolerance analysis using the nite-element method, Int J RF Microwave Comput-Aided Eng 16 (2006), 118 124. 6. R. Shireen, T. Hwang, S. Shi, and D.W. Prather, A high gain patch fed horn antenna for millimeter wave imaging receiver, Proc SPIE 5989 (2005), 378 385. 7. L. Giauffret, J. Laheurte, and A. Papiernik, Study of various shapes of the coupling slot in CPW-fed microstrip antennas, IEEE Trans Antennas Propag 45 (1997), 642 647. 8. Y.-B. Jung, S.-Y. Eom, S.-I. Jeon, and C.-J. Kim, Novel Ka-band microstrip antenna fed circular polarized horn array antenna, IEEE AP-S Symp Dig 3 (2004), 2476 2479. 9. S.T. Rowe and R.B. Waterhouse, Broadband CPW fed stacked patch antenna, Electron Lett 35 (1999), 681 682. 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Figure 1 switch Schematic of (a) Conventional RF switch and (b) Proposed RF

A DUAL-BAND RF SWITCH USING COMPOSITE RIGHT/LEFT-HANDED TRANSMISSION LINES AND PIN DIODES
Dong-Ryul Shin,1 JeongPyo Kim,2 ChangHyun Park,1 and Wonmo Seong1 1 EMW Antenna Co., Ltd, R&D Center, Deagu, South Korea; Corresponding author: dongry80@naver.com 2 Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Hanyang University, Korea Received 16 December 2007 ABSTRACT: A dual-band RF switch that utilizes composite right/left handed (CRLH) transmissions-lines(TLs) and PIN diodes is proposed. The design method of RF switch is based on the phase characteristic of the CRLH-TL, which can be adjusted arbitrary, and employed conventional type-II; lter structure. The use of multiple PIN diodes as switching element offers prominent performance such as low insertion loss, low power consumption, and high isolation. Theoretical performance of RF switch is veried through the circuit simulations and the measurement of a fabricated prototype at 0.8 GHz and 1.6 GHz. 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 50: 2074 2077, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.23591 Key words: switch; dual-band; composite right/left-handed transmission line 1. INTRODUCTION

dual-band systems are employed in these applications to enhance the reliability. Therefore, the dual-band RF switch becomes key component in the front end of wireless systems. A RF switch is an electrical component for opening and closing the connection of a circuit or for changing of a circuit device. In the case of practical switch as a multiple PIN diodes which enhance the electrical performance using the conventional transmission-line (TL) structure are widely used to achieve high isolation [1, 2]. Figure 1(a) shows a conventional RF switch based on type II; lter structure. However, the switch based on conventional TL structure was a key problem for dual-band conguration due to the distributed characteristics of the transmission line, which were referred to as right-handed (RH) TL. For example, /4 RH open-stubs is only operated for band-stopping at a fundamental frequency and at its odd harmonics. This problem can be overcome by implementing some components that is consisted of composite right/ left-handed (CRLH) TL. There has been an increasing interest in development of RF/ Microwave component using CRLH TLs [3, 4]. The CRLH TL is meta-structured TL composed of unit cell with RH TL and left-

In recent years, the dual-band RF components have become important for wireless communication. For example, the global systems for mobile communication operate at both 900 and 1800 MHz and the

Figure 2

Equationuivalent circuit model of the CRLH-TL

2074

MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 50, No. 8, August 2008

DOI 10.1002/mop