Reducing the measurement footprint in the characterization of low-loss materials using the flanged-waveguide measurement geometry

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the flanged-waveguide material-characterization technique, originally designed to characterize lossy materials only, can be extended to accurately extract permittivity and permeability of low-loss materials. Provided in this paper is a summary of the flanged-waveguide technique. This is followed by a discussion of how time-domain gating can be utilized to mitigate the error introduced by waves reflected from the edges of the flanges. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that by utilizing time-domain gating, the cross-sectional dimensions of the flanges can be significantly reduced. Lastly, material measurement results of plexiglass are provided to validate the time-domain gating technique.