Polymer-Based Micromachining for Scalable and Cost-Effective Fabrication of Gap Waveguide Devices Beyond 100 GHz
Doctoral thesis, 2023
A gap waveguide is a planar waveguide technology which does not suffer from the dielectric loss of planar waveguides, and which does not require any electrical connections between the metal walls. It therefore offers competitive loss performance together with providing several benefits in terms of assembly and integration of active components. This thesis demonstrates the realization of gap waveguide components operating above 100 GHz, in a low-cost and time-efficient way employing the development of new polymer-based fabrication methods.
A template-based injection molding process has been designed to realize a high gain antenna operating at D band (110 - 170 GHz). The injection molding of OSTEMER is an uncomplicated and fast device fabrication method. In the proposed method, the time-consuming and complicated parts need to be fabricated only once and can later be reused.
A dry film photoresist-based method is also presented for the fabrication of waveguide components operating above 100 GHz. Dry film photoresist offers rapid fabrication of waveguide components without using complex and advanced machinery.
For the integration of active circuits and passive waveguides section a straightforward solution has been demonstrated. By utilizing dry film photoresist, a periodic metal pin array has been fabricated and incorporated in a waveguide to microstrip transition that can be an effective and low-cost way of integrating MMIC of arbitrary size to waveguide blocks.
Dry film photoresist
Terahertz frequency
Injection molding
MEMS
mmWave
Gap waveguide
Antenna
Waveguide
Polymer microfabrication
Author
Sadia Farjana
Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Electronics Material and Systems
Realizing a 140 GHz Gap Waveguide–Based Array Antenna by Low-Cost Injection Molding and Micromachining
Journal of Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves,;Vol. 42(2021)p. 893-914
Journal article
Dry film photoresist-based microfabrication: a new method to fabricate millimeter-wave waveguide components
Micromachines,;Vol. 12(2021)p. 1-13
Journal article
Low Loss Gap Waveguide Transmission line and Transitions at 220-320 GHz Using Dry Film Micromachining
IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology,;Vol. 11(2021)p. 2012-2021
Journal article
Micromachined Wideband Ridge Gap Waveguide Power Divider at 220-325 GHz
IEEE Access,;Vol. In Press(2022)
Journal article
Multilayer Dry Film Photoresist Fabrication of a Robust >100 GHz Gap Waveguide Slot Array Antenna
IEEE Access,;Vol. 11(2023)p. 43630-43638
Journal article
Micromachined Low-Loss Transition from Waveguide-to-Microstrip Line for Large MMIC Integration and Packaging at 250 GHz , submitted to IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology
Areas of Advance
Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
Subject Categories
Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering
Nano Technology
Infrastructure
Nanofabrication Laboratory
ISBN
978-91-7905-845-6
Doktorsavhandlingar vid Chalmers tekniska högskola. Ny serie: 5311
Publisher
Chalmers
Kollektorn, MC2
Opponent: Dr. Goutam Chattopadhyay NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology Pasadena, California, United States