An efficient 1-D periodic boundary integral equation technique to analyze radiation onto straight and meandering microstrip lines

A modeling technique to analyze the radiation onto arbitrary 1-D periodic metallizations residing on a microstrip substrate is presented. In particular, straight and meandering lines are being studied. The method is based on a boundary integral equation, more specifically on a mixed potential integral equation (MPIE), that is solved by means of the method of moments. A plane wave excites the microstrip structure, and according to the Floquet-Bloch theorem, the analysis can be restricted to one single unit cell. Thereto, the MPIE must be constructed using the pertinent 1-D periodic layered medium Green's functions. Here, these Green's functions are obtained in closed form by invoking the perfectly matched layer paradigm. The proposed method is applied to assess the radiation onto 1) a semi-infinite plate, 2) a straight microstrip line, and 3) a serpentine delay line. These three types of examples clearly illustrate and validate the method. Also, its efficiency, compared to a previously developed fast microstrip analysis technique, is demonstrated

Compact and Broadband Microstrip-Line-Fed Modified Rhombus Slot Antenna

The printed microstrip-line-fed broadband rhombus slot antenna is investigated in this paper. With the use of the offset microstrip feed line and the corner-truncated protruded ground plane, the bandwidth enhancement and the slot size reduction for the proposed slot antenna can be obtained. The experimental results demonstrate that the impedance bandwidth for 10 dB return loss reaches 5210 MHz (108.2%, 2210-7420 MHz), which is about 2.67 times of a conventional microstrip-line-fed rhombus slot antenna. This bandwidth can provide with the wireless communication services operating in wireless local area network (WLAN) and worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) bands. Under the use of the protruded ground plane, the slot size can be reduced by about 52%. Details of simulated and measured results are presented and discussed

Analysis and characterizations of planar transmission structures and components for superconducting and monolithic integrated circuits

The analysis and modeling of superconducting planar transmission lines were performed. Theoretically, the highest possible Q values of superconducting microstrip line was calculated and, as a result, it provided the Q value that the experiment can aim for. As an effort to search for a proper superconducting transmission line structure, the superconducting microstrip line and coplanar waveguide were compared in terms of loss characteristics and their design aspects. Also, the research was expanded to a superconducting coplanar waveguide family in the microwave packaging environment. Theoretically, it was pointed out that the substrate loss is critical in the superconducting transmission line structures

Dielectric measurement based microstrip transmission line

The measurement of complex dielectric properties of materials at radio frequency is very important especially in the research fields, such as material science, microwave circuit design, absorber development, biological research, etc. Dielectric measurement is important because it can provide the electrical and magnetic characteristics of the materials, which proved useful in many research and development fields.The proposed technique present a simple microstrip transmission line method for the broadband radio frequency characterization of dielectric constant of non-dispersive materials. A microstrip line having impedance other than 50 Ω is designed and material under test is used as the substrate. The impedance mismatch between a non-50 Ω characteristic impedance of the microstrip line and 50 Ω coaxial to microstrip connectors generates significant reflection/transmission at the input ports. The mismatch between the input impedance and port is used to extract the dielectric constant of the substrate. For experimental validation, the microstrip trace is sticked on the test substrate which are FR4, Teflon and Roger 5880. During the measurement, the microstrip line is connected to vector network analyser through SMA connectors. It is found that this technique introduce error of 10.83%, 7.53% and 21.32% for FR4, Teflon and Roger 5880 respectively. On the other hand, the comparison with the experimental measurement shows 13.5%, 52.95% and 31.40% of error for FR4, Teflon and Roger 5880 respectively. The future research, can focus on measuring the dielectric properties of dispersive material including its loss factor material based on Kramers-kronig relationship

Integrated-circuit balanced parametric amplifier

Amplifier, fabricated on single dielectric substrate, has pair of Schottky barrier varactor diodes mounted on single semiconductor chip. Circuit includes microstrip transmission line and slot line section to conduct signals. Main features of amplifier are reduced noise output and low production cost

A Compact and Wideband Coupled-Line Coupler with High Coupling Level Using Shunt Periodic Stubs

A wideband microstrip forward-wave coupled-line coupler with high coupling value is presented. Compared with the conventional edge-coupled microstrip forward-wave coupler, this symmetrical structure, consisting periodic shunt stubs between the two coupled-lines, achieves wider operating bandwidth and larger coupling level. To characterize this structure, the equivalent circuit model is established and verified by measurement and full-wave results. The designed and fabricated prototype is a 0-dB forward-wave coupler with 0.6 mm stub length. This coupler exhibits a coupled amplitude balance of ±2 dB, good matching (15dB) and at least 15dB isolation between adjacent ports over a wide bandwidth of 66% from 2 GHz to 4 GHz centered at 3 GHz. The coupled-line length and width of the proposed structure are approximately λg/2 and λg/13, respectively, which makes it more compact than the conventional forward coupled-line couplers

Coplanar waveguide feeds for phased array antennas

The design and performance is presented of the following Coplanar Waveguides (CPW) microwave distribution networks for linear as well as circularly polarized microstrip patches and dipole arrays: (1) CPW/Microstrip Line feed; (2) CPW/Balanced Stripline feed; (3) CPW/Slotline feed; (4) Grounded CPW/Balanced coplanar stripline feed; and (5) CPW/Slot coupled feed. Typical measured radiation patterns are presented, and their relative advantages and disadvantages are compared

Design of microstrip patch antenna for IEEE 802.16-2004 applications

This thesis presents microstrip patch antenna IEEE 802.16-2004 standards for microwave applications and WiMax. Narrow bandwidth (BW) is the main defect of microstrip patch antenna in wireless communication. The bandwidth can be improved by increasing the substrate thickness, and using air as substrate with low dielectric constant. The antennas were fabricated using FR4 board. Two types of microstrip antenna were used, the first was a single microstrip patch antenna and the second was using an air-gap technique as the dielectric between two antenna boards. The spacer of the air-gap has thickness of 2mm. It was made of wood to separate between the two boards. The transmission line model was used to get the approximate dimension for the design. Different parameters were obtained depending on the simulation and measurement. The Computer Simulations Technology (CST) software was used to simulate the design and the measurement was executed by Vector Network Analyzer (VNA). The two designs were compared to each other and found that some improvements were obtained on the air-gap technique. The bandwidth was improved by 4.51 % with air-gap technique and only 1.02 % with the single patch antenna

Thin film dielectric microstrip kinetic inductance detectors

Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors, or MKIDs, are a type of low temperature detector that exhibit intrinsic frequency domain multiplexing at microwave frequencies. We present the first theory and measurements on a MKID based on a microstrip transmission line resonator. A complete characterization of the dielectric loss and noise properties of these resonators is performed, and agrees well with the derived theory. A competitive noise equivalent power of 5$\times10^{-17}$ W Hz$^{-1/2}$ at 1 Hz has been demonstrated. The resonators exhibit the highest quality factors known in a microstrip resonator with a deposited thin film dielectric.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, APL accepte