Abstract
We propose and demonstrate a novel design of a multi-arm bowtie antenna (MABA) able to provide wideband field enhancement (FE). The FE is a looked-for parameter of antennas in an integrated electro-optic (EO) communication and sensing applications. In the proposed MABA, the paralleled arms with different lengths and flare angles provide multiple resonance frequencies. By tailoring these resonance frequencies adequately close to each other, a wide range of frequencies with high FE is achieved and the intrinsic limitation of conventional bowtie antennas (BAs) in this regard is overcome. The proposed MABA is designed at the center frequency of 66.2 GHz and fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator substrate with 1.69 mm × 0.21 mm dimensions. Simulation and measurement results show about 40° beamwidth and 63.4-dB FE peak with 27 GHz bandwidth, which is three times larger than the bandwidth of a conventional BA, as the most commonly used antenna for this application, on the same substrate. A figure of merit (FoM) is proposed to study the performance of antennas for integrated EO applications approximately independent from the effects of substrate, operating frequency, and optical parts. The FoM is calculated and a comparison is presented for different state-of-the-art antennas in literature showing more than 2 times better performance of the proposed MABA.
© 2018 IEEE
PDF Article
More Like This
Cited By
You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.
Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription