Multilayer $W$ -Band Artificial Dielectric on Liquid Crystal Polymer

We present an artificial dielectric material designed to operate at W-band millimeter-wave frequencies. The artificial dielectric exhibits a wide range of variation in its effective refractive index, making it suitable for use in planar gradient index (GRIN) microwave lenses and other quasi-optical devices. These devices include those designed using recently developed transformation optics techniques. Because the artificial materials are designed to be nonresonant, their effective refractive indices display very low dispersion with frequency; simulation and measurement results for a number of test samples are presented that confirm the expected broad bandwidth properties. A comparison between the expected and experimentally determined indices-of-refraction for these samples further reveals close, quantitative agreement.