Micromechanical tuning elements in a 620-GHz monolithic integrated circuit
Abstract
While monolithic integrated-circuit technology promises a practical means for realizing reliable reproducible planar millimeter and submillimeter-wave circuits, conventional planar circuits do not allow for critical post-fabrication optimization of performance. A 620-GHz quasi-optical monolithic detector circuit is used here to demonstrate the performance of two integrated micromechanical planar tuning elements. This is the first reported demonstration of integrated micromechanical tuning at submillimeter wavelengths. The tuning elements, called sliding planar backshorts (SPBs), are used to adjust the electrical length of planar transmission-line tuning stubs to vary the power delivered between a substrate-lens coupled planar antenna and a thin-film bismuth detector over a range of nearly 15 dB. The circuit performance agrees with theoretical calculations and microwave measurements of a -0.06-dB reflection coefficient made for a scale model of the integrated tuners. The demonstrated tuning range for the SPB tuners indicates that they can be valuable for characterizing components in developmental circuits and for optimizing the in-use performance of various millimeter and submillimeter-wave integrated circuits.
Additional Information
© Copyright 1998 IEEE. Reprinted with permission. Manuscript received January 14, 1998; revised August 10, 1998. This work was supported by the Innovative Science and Technology Office of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Space Science. The work of V. M. Lubecke was supported in part by NASA under a GSRP Fellowship. The authors would like to thank Y.-C. Tai for valuable discussions on micromachining, P. H. Siegel for providing advice and facilities, including the dielectric-filled parabola, and O. Bori´c-Lubecke for assistance with the manuscript.Files
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