학술논문

High-Gain Circularly Polarized 500–750 GHz Lens Antenna Enabled by Silicon Micromachining
Document Type
Periodical
Source
IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat. Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on. 72(5):4077-4085 May, 2024
Subject
Fields, Waves and Electromagnetics
Aerospace
Transportation
Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Lenses
Terahertz communications
Terahertz radiation
Broadband antennas
Antennas
Dielectrics
Silicon
Circularly polarized
lens antenna
silicon micromachining
THz antenna
Language
ISSN
0018-926X
1558-2221
Abstract
This article introduces an innovative silicon-micromachined, low-profile, high-gain antenna designed for wideband performance in the whole 500–750-GHz waveguide band. The novel antenna concept is based on an elliptical Fresnel zone planner lens (FZPL) with optimized distribution of the zone dimensions. Furthermore, without requiring any extra phase compensating components, the design ensures circular polarization (CP), which was measured to an axial ratio of better than 2.5 over the whole waveguide band (40% fractional bandwidth). The measured gain ranges from 24.3 to 25.7 dBi, and the return loss is better than 15 dB over the whole 250 GHz band. The $8.25\times7.62$ mm large and only $526~\mu \text{m}$ thick antenna can be directly mounted onto a standard WM-380 waveguide flange. The measured radiation patterns for CP, the gain, the axial ratio, and the return loss are excellently matching the simulated antenna performance. This work shows that all-dielectric antennas at THz frequencies easily outperform metal-based designs due to drastically reduced loss with only −0.85 dB average radiation efficiency in the overall frequency band.