volume | PIER Journals

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to use polymer-based materials (instead of hard ceramics) in fabrication of dielectric resonator antennas at millimeter-wave frequencies. The soft nature of polymers facilitates machining of antennas, while the low permittivity of polymers naturally enhances the bandwidth. More importantly, advantageous properties (e.g., flexibility and photosensitivity) of some polymers introduce special capabilities which can not be achieved by ceramics. A photosensitive polymer is utilized in this paper to fabricate polymer-based resonator antennas. As a result, deep X-ray lithography is enabled to produce high quality antenna structures. The proposed dielectric resonator antennas which inherently have very low relative permittivity (usually in a range from 3 to 5) are excited effectively using a slotcoupled feeding method and analyzed in both the frequency and time domains. Impedance and radiation properties are compared with higher permittivity ceramic antennas. Impedance bandwidths up to 32 percent are measured and stable radiation patterns with low cross polarization levels over the entire bandwidth are achieved for the prototype antenna. This method enables lithography-based batch fabrication of structures with fine features and complex geometries.

1. Long, S. A., M. McAllister, and L. C. Shen, "The resonant cylindrical dielectric cavity antenna," IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 31, 406-412, May 1983.
doi:10.1109/TAP.1983.1143080 Google Scholar

2. Zhang, L. N., S. S. Zhong, and S. Q. Xu, "Broadband U-shaped dielectric resonator antenna with elliptical patch feed," IET (IEE) Electronics Letters, Vol. 44, No. 16, 947-949, Jul. 2008.
doi:10.1049/el:20081253 Google Scholar

3. Almpanis, G., C. Fumeaux, J. Frohlich, and R. Vahldieck, "A truncated conical dielectric resonator antenna for body-area network applications," IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Vol. 8, 279-282, 2009.
doi:10.1109/LAWP.2008.2005213 Google Scholar

4. Kishk, A. A., A. W. Glisson, and G. P. Junker, "Bandwidth enhancement for split cylindrical dielectric resonator antennas," Progress In Electromagnetics Research, Vol. 33, 97-118, 2001.
doi:10.2528/PIER00122803 Google Scholar

5. Leung, K. W. and H. K. Ng, "The slot-coupled hemispherical dielectric resonator antenna with a parasitic patch: Applications to the circularly polarized antenna and wide-band antenna ," IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 53, No. 5, 1762-1769, May 2005.
doi:10.1109/TAP.2005.846731 Google Scholar

6. Chang, T. H. and J. F. Kiang, "Broadband dielectric resonator antenna with metal coating," IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 55, No. 5, 1254-1259, May 2007.
doi:10.1109/TAP.2007.895582 Google Scholar

7. Kumar, A. V. P., V. Hamsakutty, J. Yohannan, and K. T. Mathew, "Microstripline FED cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna with a coplanar parasitic strip," Progress In Electromagnetics Research, Vol. 60, 143-152, 2006.
doi:10.2528/PIER05121301 Google Scholar

8. Huang, W. and A. A. Kishk, "Compact wideband multi-layer cylindrical dielectric resonator antennas," IET Microwave, Antennas & Propagation, Vol. 1, No. 5, 998-1005, 2007.
doi:10.1049/iet-map:20070028 Google Scholar

9. Wong, K. L. and N. C. Chen, "Analysis of broadband hemispherical dielectric resonator antenna with a dielectric coating," Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, Vol. 7, No. 2, 73-76, 1994.
doi:10.1002/mop.4650070213 Google Scholar

10. Rao, Q., T. A. Denidni, A. R. Sebak, and R. H. Johnston, "On improving impedance matching of a CPW fed low permittivity dielectric resonator antenna ," Progress In Electromagnetics Research, Vol. 53, 21-29, 2005.
doi:10.2528/PIER04062901 Google Scholar

11. Svedin, J., L. G. Huss, D. Karlen, P. Enoksson, and C. Rusu, "A micromachined 94 GHz dielectric resonator antenna for focal plane array applications ," IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium, 1375-1378, 2007.

12. Bijumon, P. V., A. P. Freundorfer, M. Sayer, and Y. M. M. Antar, "On-chip silicon integrated cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna for millimeter wave applications," International Symposium on Signals Systems & Electronics, 489-492, 2007.
doi:10.1109/ISSSE.2007.4294520 Google Scholar

13. Oh, J., T. Baek, D. Shin, J. Rhee, and S. Nam, "60-GHz CPW-fed dielectric resonator-above-patch antenna for broadband WLAN applications using micromachining technology ," Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, Vol. 49, No. 8, 1859-1861, 2007.
doi:10.1002/mop.22632 Google Scholar

14. Buerkle, A., K. F. Brakora, and K. Sarabandi, "Fabrication of a DRA array using ceramic stereolithography," IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Vol. 5, 479-482, 2006.
doi:10.1109/LAWP.2006.885167 Google Scholar

15. Brakora, K. F., J. Halloran, and K. Sarabandi, "Design of 3-D monolithic MMW antennas using ceramic stereolithography," IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 44, No. 3, 790-797, 2007.
doi:10.1109/TAP.2007.891855 Google Scholar

16. Madou, M. J., Fundamentals of Microfabrication: The Science of Miniaturization, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2002.

17. Hinczewski, C., S. Corbel, and T. Chartier, "Stereolithography for the fabrication of ceramic three-dimensional parts," Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 4, No. 3, 104-111, 1998.
doi:10.1108/13552549810222867 Google Scholar

18. Mongia, R. K. and A. Ittipiboon, "Theoretical and experimental investigations on rectangular dielectric resonator antennas," IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 45, No. 9, 1348-1356, 1997.
doi:10.1109/8.623123 Google Scholar

19. Kranenbrug, R. A., S. A. Long, and J. T. Williams, "Coplanar waveguide excitation of dielectric resonator antennas," IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 39, 119-122, 1991.
doi:10.1109/8.64448 Google Scholar

20. Mongia, R. K. and P. Bhartia, "Dielectric resonator antennas --- A review and general design relations for resonant frequency and bandwidth," International Journal of Microwave and Millimeter-wave Computer-aided Engineering, Vol. 4, No. 3, 230-247, 1994.
doi:10.1002/mmce.4570040304 Google Scholar

21. Zou, G., H. Groenqvist, J. P. Starski, and J. Liu, "Characteri-zation of liquid crystal polymer for high frequency system-in-a-package applications," IEEE Trans. Advanced Packaging, Vol. 25, No. 4, 503-508, Nov. 2002. Google Scholar

22. Koulouridis, S., G. Kiziltas, Y. Zhou, D. J. Hansford, and J. L. Volakis, "Polymer-ceramic composites for microwave applications: Fabrication and performance assessment," IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., Vol. 54, No. 12, 4202-4208, Dec. 2006.
doi:10.1109/TMTT.2006.885887 Google Scholar

23. Wasylyshyn, D. A., "Effects of moisture on the dielectric properties of polyoxymethylene (POM)," IEEE Trans. Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation, Vol. 12, No. 1, 183-193, Feb. 2005.
doi:10.1109/TDEI.2005.1394029 Google Scholar

24. Rashidian, A. and D. M. Klymyshyn, "On the two segmented and high aspect ratio dielectric resonator antennas for bandwidth enhancement and miniaturization ," IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 57, No. 9, 2775-2780, Sep. 2009.
doi:10.1109/TAP.2009.2027351 Google Scholar

25. Rashidian, A. and D. M. Klymyshyn, "Very low permittivity slot-fed dielectric resonator antennas with improved bandwidth for millimetre-wave applications," 3rd European Conf. on Antennas and Propag., 3554-3557, Berlin, Mar. 2009.

26. Rashidian, A., D. M. Klymyshyn, M. Boerner, and J. Mohr, "Deep x-ray lithography processing for batch fabrication of thick polymer-based antenna structures," J. Micromech. Microeng., Vol. 20, No. 2, 1-11, Feb. 2010.
doi:10.1088/0960-1317/20/2/025026 Google Scholar

27. Junker, G. P., A. A. Kishk, A. W. Glisson, and D. Kajfez, "Effect of fabrication imperfections for ground-plane-backed dielectric-resonator antennas," IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag., Vol. 37, No. 1, 40-46, Feb. 1995.
doi:10.1109/74.370580 Google Scholar

Dr. Atabak Rashidian

Dr. David M. Klymyshyn

Dr. Mohammadreza Tayfeh Aligodarz

Dr. Martin Boerner

Dr. Juergen Mohr