Liquid Crystal Based Dielectric Waveguide Phase Shifters for Phased Arrays at W-Band

摘要： In this work, the feasibility of microwave liquid crystal based dielectric waveguide phased shifters is investigated in a phased rod antenna array for the ?rst time. For this, a 1 × 4 rod antenna array is designed including the phase shifters as well as a cascaded E-plane power divider network. As core elements, the phase shifter are designed as continuously tunable subwavelength ?bers, partially ?lled with a newly speci?cally synthesized microwave liquid crystal, exhibiting a maximum FoM 145?/dB at 102.5 GHz. As proof-of-concept, a simpli?ed electric biasing network is developed, demonstrating its beam steering capability by changing the scanning angle between 0?, ?25? and +15? with three different voltage distributions. The antenna array is well matched throughout the complete W-band with a input re?ection below ?10 dB. The measured antenna gain is between 11.5 to 9.1 dBi at 85 GHz accompanied with a side lobe level between ?12 to ?7 dB, depending on the steering con?guration.