Foam micromachined aperture-coupled antennas for V-Band low-cost applications

Nolwenn Caillet (1, 2, 3) , Stéphane Pinel (4) , Cédric Quendo (1, 3) , Christian Person (1, 2, 3) , Eric Rius (1, 3) , Jean-François Favennec (1, 3) , Joy Laskar (4)

1 Lab-STICC - Laboratoire des sciences et techniques de l'information, de la communication et de la connaissance (UMR 3192)
2 MO - Département Micro-Ondes
3 LEST - Laboratoire d'Electronique et Systèmes de Télécommunications
4 School of electrical and electronic engineering

In this paper, we present a novel micromachining approach for realizing 60 GHz foam aperture-coupled antennas. The foam is indeed an ideal antenna substrate provided by its electrical properties close to those of the air. At 60 GHz, the optimum foam thickness supporting the printed antenna must be about 400 um, which is a technological obstacle due to the poor mechanical resistance of the foam. It has been surrounded by this new micromachining method. A single patch and a 2times4 antenna array have been realized and measured. They exhibit wideband bandwidth and excellent radiation efficiency. The gains are about 6.7 dBi for the single patch and 13 dBi for the 2times4 antenna array. These results demonstrate the great potential of foam substrate for 60 GHz antennas. To the best knowledge of the authors, this work is the first report of a low-cost, high gain and high efficiency 60 GHz foam aperture-coupled antennas.

Mots clés: foams; micromachining; microstrip antenna arrays; millimetre wave antenna arrays; V-band low-cost applications; antenna array; electrical properties; foam micromachined aperture-coupled antennas; foam substrate; frequency 60 GHz; ideal antenna substrate; micromachining approach; optimum foam thickness; printed antenna; single patch antenna

Domaines: Electronique; Electromagnétisme

Nolwenn Caillet, Stéphane Pinel, Cédric Quendo, Christian Person, Eric Rius, et al.. Foam micromachined aperture-coupled antennas for V-Band low-cost applications. European Microwave Conference, 2007, Oct 2007, Munich, Germany. pp.1066 - 1069, ⟨10.1109/EUMC.2007.4405381⟩. ⟨hal-00492130⟩