An f/0.27 High-Gain Lens Antenna for Ultrasmall Platforms at THz Frequencies

Journal article (2023)

Authors

S.L. van Berkel California Institute of Technology, Tera-Hertz Sensing - EEMCS
M. Alonso Del Pino California Institute of Technology, Tera-Hertz Sensing - EEMCS
Cecile Jung-Kubiak California Institute of Technology
G. Chattopadhyay California Institute of Technology
Research Group
Tera-Hertz Sensing (EEMCS) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2023 S.L. van Berkel, M. Alonso Del Pino, Cecile Jung-Kubiak, Goutam Chattopadhyay
DOI
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https://doi.org/10.1109/TTHZ.2023.3291450
Antenna CubeSat Terahertz Spectroscopy Radiometry Submillimeter wave High gain Leaky-wave (LW) radiation Lens Low focal number Low profile SmallSat Waveguide (WG) feed
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Published Date

2023

Language

English

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Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Department

Microelectronics

Research Group

Tera-Hertz Sensing

Abstract

The development of a low focal number and low-mass lens antenna is presented that enables terahertz spectroscopy applications on ultracompact platforms. The antenna operates efficiently over a 20% fractional bandwidth, from 450 to 550 GHz, with a gain of 50 dBi at 500 GHz. The antenna consists of a hyperbolic silicon lens that is placed in a record low focal number configuration (f#=0.27) with respect to an advanced waveguide feed. An incident field-matching analysis is applied to investigate the optimal feed radiation pattern that maximizes the lens aperture efficiency, which would result in a 20% increase in aperture efficiency (> 80%) with respect to a standard open-ended waveguide (< 60% aperture efficiency). A multilayer leaky-wave (LW) stratification is quasi-analytically optimized to approximate the optimal feeding pattern, resulting in a >70% lens aperture efficiency. An example LW stratification is synthesized using silicon micromachining technology and is fully characterized in combination with the dielectric lens.