Search Results (21)

This study introduces two compact wideband substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW) filters fabricated using thin-film technology. The wideband bandpass response is achieved by incorporating interdigital capacitor (IDC) structures into a half-mode SIW (HMSIW) transmission line. An equivalent LC circuit model is formulated to analyze the influence of IDC parameters on the generation of transmission zeros. For the first filter (BPF 1), a third-order IDC coupling configuration is employed, resulting in a 1 dB passband spanning 11 GHz to 18 GHz, a minimum insertion loss of 0.66 dB, three transmission zeros that enhance stopband performance, and a compact core dimension of $0.49{\lambda }_g\times 0.29{\lambda }_g$. For further miniaturization, a modified HMSIW transmission line incorporating a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor at the equivalent magnetic wall is proposed. This design effectively reduces the transverse dimension of the waveguide while maintaining the original cutoff frequency. Utilizing this configuration, the second bandpass filter (BPF 2) was designed and fabricated employing double-layer ceramic thin-film technology. The resulting filter exhibits a 1 dB passband spanning 10 GHz to 18 GHz, a compact footprint measuring $0.44{\lambda }_g\times 0.23{\lambda }_g$, a minimum insertion loss of 0.58 dB, and features three transmission zeros. The fabricated and measured results of both filters show good agreement with simulations. Compared with previously reported wideband SIW filters, the proposed designs demonstrate comprehensive advantages in fractional bandwidth, insertion loss, out-of-band suppression, and circuit size, providing effective filtering solutions for high-density integration of microwave and millimeter-wave RF systems. Full article

This paper presents the novel design of a printed, low-cost, dual-port, and dual-polarized slot antenna for microwave biomedical radars. The butterfly shape of the radiating element, with orthogonally positioned arms, enables simultaneous radiation of both vertically and horizontally polarized waves. The antenna is intended for full-duplex in-band applications using two mutually isolated antenna ports, with the CPW port on the same side of the substrate as the slot antenna and the microstrip port positioned orthogonally on the other side of the substrate. Those two ports can be used as transmit and receive ports in a radar transceiver, with a port isolation of 25 dB. Thanks to the bow-tie shape of the slots and an additional coupling region between the butterfly arms, there is more flexibility in simultaneous optimization of the resonant frequency and input impedance at both ports, avoiding the need for a complicated matching network that introduces the attenuation and increases antenna dimensions. The advantage of this design is demonstrated through the modeling of an eight-element dual-port linear array with an extremely simple feed network for high-gain biosensing applications. To validate the simulation results, prototypes of the proposed antenna were fabricated and tested. The measured operating band of the antennas spans from 2.35 GHz to 2.55 GHz, with reflection coefficients of less than—10 dB, a maximum gain of 8.5 dBi, and a front-to-back gain ratio that is greater than 15 dB, which is comparable with other published single dual-port slot antennas. This is the simplest proposed dual-port, dual-polarization antenna that enables straightforward scaling to other frequency bands. Full article

Addressing the stability requirements of photonic integrated devices operating over wide temperature ranges, this work achieves controlled fabrication of femtosecond-laser direct-written Type II double-line waveguides and Type III depressed-cladding tubular waveguides within ultra-low-expansion LAS glass-ceramics. The light-guiding mechanisms were elucidated through finite element modeling. The influences of laser writing parameters and waveguide geometric structures on guiding performance were systematically investigated. Experimental results demonstrate that the double-line waveguides exhibit optimal single-mode guiding performance at 30 μm spacing and 120 mW writing power. For the tubular depressed-cladding waveguides, both single-mode and multi-mode fields are attainable across a broad processing parameter window. Large-mode-area characteristics manifested in the 50 μm core waveguide, exhibiting an edge-shifted intensity profile for higher-order modes that generated a hollow beam, enabling applications in atom guidance and particle trapping. Full article

Glide-symmetric double-corrugated parallel-plate waveguides (GS-DCPPWs) have essential technical properties such as an electromagnetic bandgap, lower dispersion, and the ability to control the equivalent refractive index. For this reason, a fast and simple analysis and design of GS-DCPPW structures have great importance to improve related microwave systems. This paper introduces a novel design methodology based on the auxiliary functions of generalized scattering matrix (AFGSM) for the dimensional synthesis of GS-DCPPWs. We test the applicability of the AFGSM method on a variety of numerical examples to determine the passband/stopband regions of single and GS-DCPPWs before applying the design procedure. Certain design specifications are chosen, and unit cell dimensions are constructed in accordance with the proposed design technique. Three design scenarios are considered to assess the success of how well the design criteria can be met with the proposed method. The designed unit cells have been periodically connected in a various finite numbers to create periodic filters as a test application for adjusting the electromagnetic bandgap. The success of the periodic GS-DCPPW filters obtained with the proposed design strategy in meeting the specified design requirements has been tested using full-wave electromagnetic simulators (CST Microwave Studio and HFSS). The results indicate that the combined use of the equivalent transmission line circuit and the root-finding routine provided by the proposed method facilitates rapid, efficient, versatile, and approximate designs for corrugated parallel-plate waveguides. Moreover, the design methodology provides the viability of developing a minimal unit cell and a compact periodic filter performance with respect to the literature counterparts. Full article

This work examines the feasibility of designing an impedance synthesis network based on a double-ridge waveguide (DRW). This design is based on the concept of the stepped-impedance line transformer as a cascade of transmission lines with different characteristic impedances, but using, in this particular case, a stepped-ridge waveguide. It is shown that this structure is able to synthesize not only real impedances but an arbitrary impedance, following some restrictions explained in this paper. An impedance synthesis network based on DRW can have numerous applications, like being used in designing amplifiers, which would eventually make possible to integrate amplifiers in waveguide technology. Full article

For the silicon optical computing chip, the optical convolution unit based on the micro-ring modulator has been demonstrated to have high integration and large computing density. To further reduce power consumption, a novel, simple Fano resonant thermo-optic modulator is presented with numerical simulation and experimental demonstration. This designed Fano resonator comprises double T-shaped waveguides and a micro-ring with a radius of 10 μm. Compared with the free use of bus waveguides, our double T-shaped waveguides generate a phase shift, along with a Fano-like line shape. The experimental results show that the resonant wavelength shift of the designed modulator is 2.4 nm with a driven power of 20 mW. In addition, the maximum spectral resolution and the extinction ratio are 70.30 dB/nm and 12.69 dB, respectively. For our thermo-optic modulator, the optical intensity power consumption sensitivity of 7.60 dB/mW is three times as large as that of the micro-ring modulator. This work has broad potential to provide a low-power-consumption essential component for large-scale on-chip modulation for optical computing with compatible metal oxygen semiconductor processes. Full article

Love surface acoustic wave (L-SAW) sensors are miniaturized, easy to integrate, and suitable for detection in liquid environments. In this paper, an L-SAW sensor with a thin Si₃N₄-SiO₂ double-covered layer was proposed for samples with small mass loads. The output response, phase velocity of the acoustic wave, and the mass sensitivity were analyzed using the finite element method (FEM). The simulation results show that the Si₃N₄ layer with high wave velocity greatly weakens the limitation of SiO₂ on the phase velocity. The phase velocity can reach about 4300 m/s, which can increase the frequency shift when the same mass load is applied. Within a certain range, the mass sensitivity of the sensor is enhanced with the increase in the total thickness of the waveguiding layer and the thickness ratio of Si₃N₄ in the double-covered layer. When the thickness ratio is 1:2, the peak value of the mass sensitivity of the sensor is approximately 50% higher than that achieved with only the SiO₂ waveguiding layer. The surface average stress of the delay line region follows the same trend as the mass sensitivity. The increase in mass sensitivity is the result of the heightened stress on the sensor surface. This L-SAW sensor, featuring a double-covered waveguiding layer, demonstrates high sensitivity and a simple structure. The simulation results lay a foundation for the design and manufacture of SAW sensors. Full article

Nd³⁺-doped GeO₂-PbO glass with silver (Ag) nanoparticles (NPs) are produced with double line waveguides through fs laser processing for photonic applications. A Ti:sapphire fs laser at 800 nm was used to write the waveguides directly into the glass 0.7 mm beneath the surface. This platform is based on pairs of parallel lines with spacing of 10 µm, each pair being formed by two identical written lines but in two different configurations of 4 or 8 separately processed lines, which are coincident. The results of optical microscopy, absorbance measurements, refractive index change, beam quality factor (at 632 and 1064 nm), photoluminescence, propagation losses, and relative gain at 1064 nm are presented. The structural changes in the glass due to the presence of Ag NPs were investigated by Raman spectroscopy. At 632 and 1064 nm, x,y-symmetrical guiding was observed, and for both kinds of overlapping pulses, a refractive index alteration of 10⁻³ was found in both directions. Photoluminescence growth of ~47% at 1064 nm was observed due to the plasmonic effect of Ag NPs. In dual waveguides containing Ag NPs, the relative gain obtained increased by 40% and 30% for four and eight overlapping lines, respectively, at 600 mW of 808 nm pump power, when compared to waveguides without those metallic NPs. We highlight the resultant positive internal gains of 5.11 and 7.12 dB/cm that showed a growth of ~40% and ~30%, respectively, with respect to the samples without Ag NPs. The increase in photoluminescence and relative gain were related to the local field growth produced by Ag NPs. The present results show that the addition of Ag NPs impacts positively on the optical performance at 1064 nm of double line waveguides processed by fs laser writing in Nd³⁺-doped GeO₂-PbO glass, opening news perspectives for photonics. Full article

In this paper, a low-loss 90°-bending design in femtosecond laser-induced double-line waveguides is theoretically proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The bending is realized based on the total internal reflection of a corner mirror (made by precise diamond blade dicing) located at the intersection of a pair of waveguides perpendicular to each other. The waveguide bending performance was birefringence free, with the insertion loss of each bending below 0.8 dB. This method provides great flexibility and has great potential for the design of integrated photonics based on femtosecond laser-inscribed crystalline materials. Full article

The efficiency of many optical processes is significantly dependent on the magnitude of the electric field. In this context, many artificially made resonating structures have been investigated to enhance light–matter interactions and facilitate the creation of practical applications. While metal–based terahertz metamaterials have been extensively investigated for this purpose, their performances are mainly limited by the poor confinement of terahertz waves on metal surfaces, exhibiting low resonance quality factors. In this work, we propose and investigate a simple yet novel scheme of enhancing wave–matter interactions in the terahertz region by exploiting the phenomenon of quasi–guided modes. The quasi-guided modes with ultra–high quality factors and huge local field enhancement can be achieved by manipulating the guided modes supported by a slab waveguide. The guided modes with the dispersion lines below the light line have infinite Q factors and can not be accessed from external space. By using a new type of composite grating composed of two ridge grating arrays with alternating ridge widths, the grating period is doubled, leading to a folding of the first Brillouin Zone and the flipping of the dispersion lines to be above the light line. Then, the guided modes will be transitioned into new quasi–guided modes with the possibility of free–space excitation while the Q factors are determined by the level of period–doubling perturbation. The presented results of realizing quasi–guided modes can be extended to other structures, providing a novel means of manipulating light–matter interactions. Full article

Beamwidth-reconfigurable antennas are useful for the intersatellite link of low earth orbit formation flying and constellation, as they prevent unauthorized satellites from eavesdropping. In this article, a circularly polarized slot array antenna based on a half-mode substrate-integrated waveguide (HMSIW) for the K-band beamwidth reconfiguration is proposed using a new radio frequency (RF) switch structure and a pair of modified −45° and +45° linearly polarized HMSIW slot arrays for the dual operation of a single-pole double-throw (SPDT)/a power divider (PD) and easy integration with other components, respectively. The RF switch structure consists of a T-junction PD, λ/4 lines, and beam lead PIN diodes with current control resistors and without a DC block circuit for low DC power consumption and size reduction. The −45°/+45° linearly polarized HMSIW slot arrays providing linear and circular polarizations (LP and CP, respectively) are operated for CP. The use of a short-circuited termination instead of dissipative termination results in easier integration with other components because the 16 radiating slots consume most of the input power. The dimension of the beamwidth-reconfigurable antenna including the bottom metal layer is 157.2 × 23.3 × 0.254 mm³ (12.5λ₀ × 1.86λ₀ × 0.0202λ₀). The RF switch for the SPDT shows the insertion losses of 1.8–2.3 and 16.7–24.2 dB and an isolation of 20.9–33.4 dB for both outputs within the 10-dB bandwidth. The RF switch for the PD has an insertion loss of 3.9–4.8 dB. The one- and two-antenna operation modes of the CP antenna provide the gains of 9.44 and 6.99 dBic, the axial ratios of 2.24 and 3.47 dB, and the horizontal beamwidths of 35.8° and 78.2°, respectively. Full article

This article demonstrates the design and development of WR-15 transition using an antipodal microstrip dipole antenna at a frequency of 60 GHz for space applications. An inline microstrip line to rectangular waveguide (MS-to-RWG) transition is proposed for the V-band (50–75 GHz) functioning. The RF energy is coupled and launched through an antipodal dipole microstrip antenna. Impedance matching and mode matching between the MS line and dipole are achieved by a quarter wave impedance transformer. This results in the better performance of transitions in terms of insertion loss (IL > −0.50 dB) and return loss (RL < −10 dB) for a 40.76% relative bandwidth from 55.57 GHz to 65.76 GHz. The lowest values of IL and RL at 60 GHz are −0.09 dB and −32.05 dB, respectively. A 50 μm thick double-sided etched InP substrate material is used for microstrip antipodal dipole antenna design. A back-to-back designed transition has IL > −0.70 dB and RL < −10 dB from 54.29 GHz to 64.07 GHz. The inline transition design is simple in structure, easy to fabricate, robust, compact, and economic; occupies less space because the transition size is exactly equal to the WR-15 length; and is prepared using an InP substrate with high permittivity of 12.4 and thickness of 50 μm. Thus, the devices have the lowest insertion loss value and lowest return loss (RL) value, of <−31 dB, as compared to earlier designs in the literature. Therefore, the proposed design has the lowest radiation loss (because of thickness) and highest transmission (about 97% power). Easy impedance matching using only a single-step quarter-wave transformer between the antipodal dipole antenna and 50 Ω microstrip line (avoiding the multi-sections’ demand and microstrip line’s tedious complexity) is needed. Since, when the InP dielectric substrate is inserted in WR-15, the waveguide becomes a dielectric-filled waveguide (DFWG), and its characteristics impedance reduces to 143 Ω from 505 Ω at an operating frequency of 60 GHz. In the proposed transition, no ridge waveguide or waveguide back-short is utilized in WR-15. The microstrip line did not contain any via, fence, window, screw, galvanic structure, post, etc. Hence, the transition is suitable for high-data-rate 5G communications, satellite remote sensing, missile navigation, MIC/MMIC circuits’ characterization, and mm-wave applications. The electrical equivalent model of the proposed design has been generated and validated using an RF circuit simulator and was found to have excellent matching. Full article

In this paper, new suspended-membrane double-ohmic-contact RF-MEMS switch configurations are proposed. Double-diagonal (DDG) beam suspensions, with either two or three anchoring points, are designed and optimized to minimize membrane deformation due to residual fabrication stresses, thus exhibiting smaller mechanical deformation and a higher stiffness with more release force than previously designed single diagonal beam suspensions. The two-anchor DDGs are designed in two different orientations, in-line and 90°-rotated. The membrane may include a window to minimize the coupling to the lower electrode. The devices are integrated in a coplanar-waveguide transmission structure and fabricated using an eight-mask surface-micro-machining process on high-resistivity silicon, with dielectric-free actuation electrodes, and including glass protective caps. The RF-MEMS switch behavior is assessed from measurements of the device S parameters in ON and OFF states. The fabricated devices feature a measured pull-in voltage of 76.5 V/60 V for the windowed/not-windowed two-anchor DDG membranes, and 54 V/49.5 V for the windowed/not-windowed three-anchor DDG membranes, with a good agreement with mechanical 3D simulations. The measured ON-state insertion loss is better than 0.7 dB/0.8 dB and the isolation in the OFF state is better than 40 dB/31 dB up to 20 GHz for the in-line/90°-rotated devices, also in good agreement with 2.5D electromagnetic simulations. Full article

In this work, a broad dual-band bandpass filter is designed by applying double-layered spoof surface plasmon polaritons (DLSSPPs) as the main transmission line (MTL) and loading combined-stub dual-mode resonators (CSDMRs) onto the MTL with certain spaces. Each CSDMR consists of an open stub and a short stub that are connected in parallel. Efficient mode conversion between the quasi-transverse electromagnetic waves in the microstrip line and the spoof surface plasmon polaritons (SSPPs) on the double-layered surface plasmon waveguide is realized using gradient double-layered metal gratings and via the sector structure impedance matching technique. A parametric study of the CSDMR demonstrates that center frequencies and bandwidths can be controlled by varying the stub lengths and widths of the CSDMRs. A second-order dual-band filter is designed and fabricated, and simulated and experimental S-parameters agree well. A lower loss of the passband is achieved compared with the filters that apply single-layered SSPPs. The space between two CSDMRs is shortened because of the slow-wave effect of the DLSSPPs. The lowpass performance of the DLSSPPs exhibits good rejection from the cutoff frequency above. Full article

To reduce the loss of the metal–insulator–metal waveguide structure in the near-infrared region, a plasmonic nanosensor structure based on a racetrack resonant cavity is proposed herein. Through finite element simulation, the transmission spectra of the sensor under different size parameters were analyzed, and its influence on the sensing characteristics of the system was examined. The analysis results show that the structure can excite the double Fano resonance, which has a distinctive dependence on the size parameters of the sensor. The position and line shape of the resonance peak can be adjusted by changing the key parameters. In addition, the sensor has a higher sensitivity, which can reach 1503.7 nm/RIU when being used in refractive index sensing; the figure of merit is 26.8, and it can reach 0.75 nm/°C when it is used in temperature sensing. This structure can be used in optical integrated circuits, especially high-sensitivity nanosensors. Full article