Planar Log-Periodic Antennas on Extended Hemishperical Silicon Lenses for Millimeter/Submillimeter Wave Detection Applications

In this paper, the radiation properties of log-periodic (LP) antennas on extended hemispherical dielectric lenses are investigated. The starting point is the far field pattern for the log-periodic antenna on a semi-infinite silicon substrate obtained from numerical simulation. Then the effects of extended hemispherical silicon dielectric lenses on this far field pattern are evaluated using ray tracing and field integration techniques. The far fields patterns out of the lenses are derived as a function of the extension length (L), from which the optimum L can be determined. The coupling efficiencies of the pattern to Gaussian beams are also calculated. The computation results show that the log-periodic antennas have good performance in terms of impedance and pattern and can be used in many submillimeter/THz systems. The simulation methods are verified by comparing the simulation results with experimental data from literature. The utilized approach represents an effective method for log periodic antenna-lens system design at millimeter/submillimeter wavelengths.     

Ray tracing on extended hemispherical and elliptical silicon dielectric lenses

In this paper, extended hemispherical and elliptical silicon dielectric lenses are compared by means of ray tracing. It is shown that the optical focuses of two lenses are not at same position though the elliptical lens is synthesized from an extended hemispherical lens by carefully choosing a particular extension length as stated in ref[1]. It may be used to explain why the best compromise between alignment, directivity and Gaussian-coupling effciency will be obtained if the feed antenna is placed at the region between 2.2 mm and 2.4 mm of extension length (for 13.7 mm diameter lens, dielectric contant = 11.7).     

A 140-170-GHz low-noise uniplanar subharmonic Schottky receiver

A 150-GHz Schottky diode subharmonic receiver based on a coplanar-waveguide-fed double-folded-slot (DFS) antenna is presented in this paper. The DFS antenna is placed on an extended hemispherical high-resistivity silicon substrate lens to achieve a high directivity and a high coupling to a Gaussian beam efficiency. The uniplanar receiver results in a 12±0.5-dB measured double-sideband conversion loss at 144-152 GHz for a 8-10 mW local-oscillator power at 77 GHz, and has a wide-hand ⩽13-dB conversion loss over 30 GHz of bandwidth (140-170 GHz). The measured conversion loss includes silicon lens absorption and reflection losses, as well as IF mismatch losses. The applications are in new small aperture (7.5-cm lenses) collision-avoidance radars at 150 GHz     

Double-slot antennas on extended hemispherical and ellipticalsilicon dielectric lenses

Far-field patterns and Gaussian-beam coupling efficiencies are investigated for a double-slot antenna placed on hemispherical lenses with varying extension lengths. The radiation patterns of a double-slot antenna on a silicon dielectric lens are computed using ray-tracing inside the dielectric lens and electric and magnetic field integration on the spherical dielectric surface. The measured radiation patterns at 246 GHz and Gaussian-beam coupling efficiencies show good agreement with theory. The theoretical results are presented in terms of extension-length/radius and radius/λ, and therefore result in universal design curves for silicon lenses of different diameters and at different frequencies. The theoretical and experimental results indicate that for single units, there exists a wide range of extension lengths which result in high Gaussian-coupling efficiencies (50-60%) to moderately high f 's. These Gaussian-coupling efficiencies can be increased to 80-90°% with the use of a λ_m/4 matching-cap layer. For imaging array applications with high packing densities, an extension-length/radius of 0.38 to 0.39 (depending on frequency) will result in peak directivity and a corresponding Gaussian-coupling efficiency 15-20% lower than for single units     

Ka波段被动成像天线系统设计与研究

针对Ka波段被动毫米波成像应用,设计了一种由介质透镜与缝隙天线馈源组成的天线系统.将高斯波束理论与光学透镜中的等光程原理相结合,设计了一种大口径介质透镜,该透镜具有良好的聚焦性能;提出了一种新型的共轭直线渐变缝隙天线作为透镜的馈源,该天线呈现出截面小、增益高的优良性能,可以在焦平面上形成密集的馈源阵列.将所设计的介质透镜与馈源天线进行联合仿真,研究结果表明,该系统在距透镜2.81 m处聚焦焦斑为50 mm,并且在±5°偏焦时聚焦焦斑都小于60 mm.所设计的天线系统具备很好的聚焦性能且具有较大的偏焦工作角度,可以适用于被动毫米波近场成像应用.     

一种圆极化透镜天线

提出了一款宽频带高增益的圆极化毫米波天线.该天线由一个半球形的介质透镜圆顶以及一个圆柱形极化器结合而成,将传统的扩展半球介质透镜与介质极化器融合在一起,既能将线极化波转化成圆极化波（反之亦然）,又能有效提高天线的增益.该设计与传统的级联结构（透镜级联极化器）不同,它能够用一个器件同时实现两个器件的功能,并且能大大减小系统的体积,降低插入损耗,减少生产成本.此外,该天线采用3D打印技术来实现,加工精度高并且容易生产,适合于毫米波天线的应用.经过验证,该天线的阻抗带宽能达到38%,轴比带宽为36%,圆极化增益达到22 dBic.     

Millimeter-wave double-dipole antennas for high-gain integratedreflector illumination

A double-dipole antenna backed by a ground plane has been fabricated for submillimeter wavelengths. The double-dipole antenna is integrated on a thin dielectric membrane with a planar detector at its center. Measured feed patterns at 246 GHz agree well with theory and demonstrate a rotationally symmetric pattern with high coupling efficiency to Gaussian beams. The input impedance is around 50 Ω and will match well to a Schottky diode or SIS detector. The double-dipole antenna served as the feed for a small machined parabolic reflector. The integrated reflector had a measured gain of 37 dB at 119 μm. This makes the double-dipole antenna ideally suited as a feed for high-resolution tracking or for long-focal-length Cassegrain antenna systems     

Full-Wavelength Dipole Antenna on a Hybrid GaAs Membrane and Si Lens for a Terahertz Photomixer

A full-wavelength dipole antenna on a GaAs membrane, covered with a silicon lens to improve the output power of a terahertz (THz) photomixer, is proposed. A full-wavelength dipole antenna supported by a GaAs membrane structure has been proven to achieve both high input resistance and high radiation efficiency for improved overall efficiency. However, the antenna has insufficient directivity. An extended hemispherical lens was introduced in front of the antenna in a non-contact configuration and coupled to the antenna radiation to achieve high directivity by beam collimation. This approach greatly enhances the antenna directivity while avoiding an inherent obstacle of the input resistance reduction caused by the high permittivity lens substrate. The resulting antenna after optimization had a 3818-Ω input resistance and a 71.2% radiation efficiency, corresponding to approximately 57% total efficiency at the 1.07-THz resonance frequency. The total efficiency of this structure is approximately 6.8 times that of a full-wavelength dipole antenna with the same hemisphere lens size while exhibiting slightly lower directivity.     

A comparison among 1-, 3-, and 7-horn feeds for a 37-beam MBA

A very common multiple beam antenna (MBA) configuration consists of a collimating device illuminated by an array of feeds. The collimating device is usually a reflector or a lens. The feeds are usually horn antennas with a circular aperture. The reflector is usually offset-fed to eliminate aperture blockage; the lens is center fed. The antenna's feeds are excited to produce a finite number of beams, so as to provide contiguous coverage of the field of view. The designer is forced to minimize the angular spacing between adjacent beams in order to maximize the minimum gain over the antenna's field of view. On the other hand, the feed horn's aperture gain is maximized when the feed horn spacing and its aperture diameter are equal. This results in antenna efficiency of the order of 30% when a single feed horn is excited to produce a beam. When a cluster of 3 or 7 adjacent feed horns are excited to produce a single beam, antenna efficiency can be increased to 50%. When it is tolerable, several identical antenna apertures can be used to replace a single aperture configuration. In this case, each of M apertures produces approximately N/M beams of an MBA that produces N beams. Horns producing adjacent beams do not illuminate the same aperture. This permits the use of a much larger horn aperture for a given beam spacing. This results in reduced spillover, higher gain of each beam, and increased antenna efficiency of each aperture. This paper investigates the maximization of gain for several lens antennas. It shows that antenna gain is increased as its focal length is decreased. That is, a focal length-to-diameter ratio (F/D) less than 1 is preferred     

毫米波宽带高增益介质超透镜天线设计

基于相位补偿原理设计了一款全介质超透镜,同时使用喇叭天线作为馈源对透镜进行馈电.通过改变介质单元的高度和介质孔的深度实现了足够的相位补偿范围.该透镜共有506个单元,口径尺寸为44.6 mm×46.6 mm,该传输阵天线的焦径比为1.天线使用全介质结构,因此使用3D打印技术加工该全介质透镜,可以降低加工成本.仿真与实测...     

Very Broadband Extended Hemispherical Lenses: Role of Matching Layers for Bandwidth Enlargement

The design and optimization of very broadband integrated lens antennas (ILAs) constitutes one of the future trends in lens antenna field. To this end we investigate numerically the radiation performance of millimeter wave ILAs coated with multiple anti reflection layers. We propose lens structures of moderate size (four wavelengths in diameter at the center frequency) and made from a dense dielectric material (ceramic). They are illuminated by two kinds of on-axis primary sources, namely a dielectric-loaded metallic waveguide and a patch antenna. This enables to assess the role of the lens illumination law on the performance of broadband ILAs. In particular, we demonstrate that ILAs coated with three stacked quarter wavelength matching layers exhibit a very broadband promising features. First their radiation characteristics remain very stable over a large frequency band: a 36% relative bandwidth is achieved using dielectric-loaded waveguide feeds. Secondly very high values of aperture efficiencies (beyond 91% over a 21% bandwidth) are obtained using printed feeds. The truncation effects of the ground plane and substrate of planar feeds upon the beam characteristics are also studied. We conclude that they must be taken into account at the very first stages of the design process of ILAs.      

High-power constant-index lens antennas

The results of a study to develop a high temperature dielectric lens antenna for use in the microwave frequency range are presented. The design and fabrication of spherical and hemispherical constant-index lenses are described. Radiation patterns, gain, polarization, and VSWR characteristics of spherical and hemispherical constant-index dielectric lens antennas over the frequency range from 2 to 11 GHz are presented. The results from high-power testing of both spherical and hemispherical constant-index lenses at a 2 kW average power level indicate that this power level causes no degradation in the performance of the lenses.     

Dielectric lens shaping and coma-correction zoning, part I: Analysis

Shaping techniques are applied to the design of dielectric lens antennas. By shaping the lens to serve as an optical transformer for aperture distribution control, many special antenna patterns can be achieved. For multiple beam applications, the cubic phase error for off-axis beams can be significantly reduced by a unique method of coma-correction zoning. Such shaped lenses are excellent candidates for low-cost, lightweight and high-performance antennas for extremely high frequency (EHF) systems. In this communication, the design principles and numerical techniques are given. Examples with parametric trade-offs are also discussed.     

The dielectric-filled parabola: a new millimeter/submillimeterwavelength receiver/transmitter front end

A design is presented for a semi-integrated millimeter/submillimeter wavelength receiver/transmitter front end incorporating a planar antenna and a solid-state device in an efficient feed structure which can be matched directly to high f-number optical systems. The feed system combines the simplicity and robustness of a dielectric substrate lens with the high gain of a parabolic reflector in a single structure that is termed a dielectric-filled parabola. The same fundamental unit can be configured as either a heterodyne or direct detection mode receiver, a power transmitter or a frequency multiplier by changing out the solid-state device and/or the integrated antenna. The structure can also be used with a small integrated antenna array in a multibeam or imaging arrangement. Design and fabrication details for the feed system are given. These are followed by beam pattern and impedance measurements taken on a microwave model when dipole, bow-tie, log-periodic, and log-spiral antennas are used as the integrated feed elements     

Testing of a 1.5-m reflector antenna at 322 GHz in a CATR based on a hologram

Hologram-based compact antenna test range (CATR) is a potential method for testing large antennas at submillimeter wavelengths. This paper describes testing of a 1.5-m single offset parabolic reflector antenna with a 3-m-diameter hologram-based CATR. This is the first time such a measurement is carried out at submillimeter wavelengths. The antenna tests were done in a CATR that was specifically designed and constructed for these tests. The measured radiation pattern at the frequency of 322 GHz is presented. The measured pattern corresponds reasonably well to the simulated pattern of the antenna. The effect of the quiet-zone field nonidealities on the measurement results and the reasons for the discrepancies in the measured antenna beam are discussed.     

Far-field pattern analysis of 94 GHz extended hemispherical lens monopulse antennas

In this paper, the far-field patterns are investigated for double-slot antenna array placed on extended hemispherical lenses. The radiation patterns of the extended hemispherical lens fed by single double-slot antenna or double-slot antenna array are computed using ray-tracing inside the dielectric lens and electric and magnetic field integration on the spherical dielectric surface. The computation results show that the sharp null of the difference pattern is below -37dB.     

Scalar horn with shaped lens improves Cassegrain efficiency

It is shown that the aperture efficiency of a classical Cassegrain antenna can be considerably improved if the radiation pattern of the feed is optimally shaped. The corresponding optimum field distribution Over the aperture of the feed consists of a circular main lobe which is surrounded by concentric sidelobe rings. This optimum field distribution with one sidelobe ring included is realized by shaping of a dielectric lens which is positioned in the aperture of a corrugated horn antenna. The design can provide a theoretical aperture efficiency of 90.5 percent when subreflector diffraction and aperture shadowing are neglected, i.e., an improvement of 0.4 dB compared to an optimum conventional feed. Measurements of a model at 22.8 GHz gave a practical result of 85.6 percent. If the model is used to feed a 30 m radiotelescope the overall antenna efficiency becomes about 71 percent.     

Analysis of dielectric-resonator antennas with emphasis onhemispherical structures

An overview is given for the development of dielectric-resonator antennas. A detailed analysis and study of the hemispherical structure, excited by a coaxial probe or a slot aperture, is then given, using the dyadic Green's functions pertaining to an electric-current source or a magnetic-current source, located in a dielectric sphere. The integral equation for a hemispherical dielectric-resonator antenna (DRA), excited by either a coaxial probe or a slot aperture, is obtained. The integral equation is solved using the method of moments. The antenna characteristics, such as input impedance, radiation patterns, directivity, and efficiency, are computed numerically, around the resonant frequency of the TE₁₁₁ mode (the HEM₁₁ mode for cylindrical coordinates). The computed input impedance is compared with numerical and experimental data available in the literature     

Dielectric Hemisphere-Loaded Scalar Horn as a Gaussian-Beam Launcher for Microwave Exposure Studies

A new type of Gaussian-beam luncher for producing a focused-microwave exposure field in biological experiments for selective partial-body irradiation is studied. The proposed launcher consists of a scalar horn (corrugated cylindrical open-ended waveguide) excited with a balanced hybrid (HE/sub 11/) mode and the aperture of the horn is loaded with a dielectric hemisphere. This Iauncher is similar to the structure described by one of the authors elsewhere, except that a dielectric hemisphere instead of a full sphere is used, with the result that the spherical aberration is considerably reduced, as well as that the weight and the size are, to a certain extent, reduced. It is shown that the present structure also produces in the image space of hemispherical lens, a near-circular Gaussian beam with a high-focusing factor. Design details, theoretical calculations, and experimental results conceming a practical X-band launcher are presented.     

Investigation of planar antennas for submillimeter receivers

A frequency-scaled model of a tapered slot antenna has been investigated. The antenna consists of a dielectric substrate which serves as a carrier for a tapered slotline. The width and the shape of the slotline and the dimensions of the substrate (including the value of the permittivity) have been varied to investigate the radiation patterns. The result is a planar antenna with a symmetrical beam in the E and H planes and a beam efficiency of almost 50%. The substrate thickness is the most important limiting factor for scaling the model to submillimeter frequencies. Taking away parts of the dielectric substrate in the front area of the antenna allows a relatively large substrate thickness. The variations of the half-power beam width versus slot parameters, versus the dielectric thickness of the substrate, and versus the length and the width of the substate are presented. In addition the beam efficiency has been measured for various frequencies, and the radiation pattern has been calculated for comparison