Microwave instrumentation for astrophysical observations: Some contributions

In this paper, it is presented a brief overview of the work done in Brazil related to the development of instrumentation for measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background and its contaminants. The microwave components and systems developed over the past two decades encompass waveguides, corrugated horns, transitions, ortho-mode transducers, receivers, and optical system. Partial to complete designs, simulations, and fabrication of these systems were conducted in order to build radiotelescopes that operated on the ground and on board stratospheric balloons to produce maps of the microwave emission of the sky between 1.465 GHz and 100 GHz.