Dry film photoresist-based microfabrication: a new method to fabricate millimeter-wave waveguide components
Journal article, 2021

This paper presents a novel fabrication method based on dry film photoresists to realize waveguides and waveguide-based passive components operating at the millimeter-wave frequency (30–300 GHz). We demonstrate that the proposed fabrication method has a high potential as an alternative to other microfabrication technologies, such as silicon-based and SU8-based micromachining for realizing millimeter-wave waveguide components. Along with the nearly identical transfer of geometrical structures, the dry film photoresist offers other advantages such as fewer processing steps, lower production cost, and shorter prototyping time over the conventional micromachining technologies. To demonstrate the feasibility of the fabrication process, we use SUEX dry film to fabricate a ridge gap waveguide resonator. The resonator is designed to exhibit two resonances at 234.6 and 284 GHz. The measured attenuation at 234 GHz is 0.032 dB/mm and at 283 GHz is 0.033 dB/mm for the fabricated prototype. A comparative study among different existing technologies indicates that the reported method can give a better unloaded Q-value than other conventional processes. The measured unloaded Q-values are in good agreement with the simulated unloaded Q-values. The signal attenuation indicates that SUEX dry film photoresists can be used to fabricate passive devices operating at millimeter-wave frequencies. Moreover, this new fabrication method can offer fast and low-cost prototyping.

MEMS

dry film photoresist

THz

gap waveguide

microfabrication

Author

Sadia Farjana

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Electronics Material and Systems

Mohammadamir Ghaderi

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Electronics Material and Systems

Sofia Rahiminejad

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Electronics Material and Systems

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

Sjoerd Haasl

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Peter Enoksson

Enoaviatech AB

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Electronics Material and Systems

Micromachines

2072666x (eISSN)

Vol. 12 3 1-13 260

Areas of Advance

Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

Subject Categories

Other Engineering and Technologies not elsewhere specified

Nano Technology

Infrastructure

Nanofabrication Laboratory

DOI

10.3390/mi12030260

More information

Latest update

4/6/2022 5