Elevated conductor coplanar waveguide-fed three-level proximity-coupled antenna for G-band applications

A new concept for feeding a proximity-coupled elevated patch antenna is presented. The antenna scheme maximises the antenna performance on high dielectric substrates. The patch is excited by electromagnetic coupling using an elevated loop slot. This loop slot is elevated on the substrate and located below the patch at the end of an elevated conductor coplanar waveguide (EC-CPW) feed line. The antenna is fabricated on SI-GaAs substrate based on surface micromachining technology without need of etching the substrate. The authors results show that the bandwidth is 15 GHz, determined from 10 dB return loss and the gain is about 7.18 dB at G-band frequencies (140 220 GHz) with nearly constant broadside radiation pattern over its bandwidth. The authors believe this to be the best reported performance of a micro-machined antenna operating in the G-band frequency range to date.