An f/0.27 High-Gain Lens Antenna for Ultrasmall Platforms at THz Frequencies
Sven van Berkel (TU Delft - Tera-Hertz Sensing, California Institute of Technology)
M. Alonso-delPino (California Institute of Technology, TU Delft - Tera-Hertz Sensing)
Cecile Jung-Kubiak (California Institute of Technology)
G. Chattopadhyay (California Institute of Technology)
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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.