A comprehensive review of integrated circuit antennas suitable for millimeter and terahertz applications is presented. A great deal of research was done on integrated circuit antennas in the last decade, and many of the problems associated with electrically thick dielectric substrates, such as substrate modes and poor radiation patterns, have been understood and solved. Several antennas, such as the integrated horn antenna, the dielectric-filled parabola, the Fresnel plate antenna, the dual-slot antenna, and the log-periodic and spiral antennas on extended hemispherical lenses, which have resulted in excellent performance at millimeter-wave frequencies, are covered in detail. A review of the efficiency definitions used with planar antennas is included. >

Millimeter-wave and terahertz integrated circuit antennas

Terahertz fields and applications

Tapered slot antennas (TSAs) with a number of potential applications as single elements and focal plane arrays are discussed. TSAs are fabricated with photolithographic techniques and integrated in either hybrid or MMIC circuits with receiver or transmitter components. They offer considerably narrower beams than other integrated antenna elements and have high aperture efficiency and packing density as array elements. Both the circuit and radiation properties of TSAs are reviewed. Topics covered include: antenna beamwidth, directivity, and gain of single-element TSAs; their beam shape and the effect of different taper shapes; and the input impedance and the effects of using thick dielectrics. These characteristics are also given for TSA arrays as are the circuit properties of the array elements. Different array structures and their applications are also described. >

The tapered slot antenna-a new integrated element for millimeter-wave applications

Basic principles for ultra-wide-band (UWB) radiation are presented and discussed in this paper. The discussion starts with a description of the influence of antennas on UWB transmission. The parameters characterizing antennas in time and in frequency domain are specified. Since the number of possible antenna structures is nearly unlimited, the focus will be on a classification according to different radiation principles. For each of these mechanisms, the typical advan- tages and disadvantages are discussed, and an example antenna and its characteristics are presented. For a wireless engineer, the problem to solve is the proper design of an antenna with the desired radiation characteristics. The final outcome of this paper is that there exist numbers of UWB antennas, but not each of them is suited for any application, especially in view of radar and communication systems requirements.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/5/4802183/04802200.pdf

Basic Properties and Design Principles of UWB Antennas Selection of suitable antennas from the many existing types, based on understanding their characteristics, is essential for effective ultrawide-band system design.

A method for calculating the radiation pattern of end-fire tapered slot antennas with or without dielectric substrate is presented. The method involves a two-step procedure: 1) determine the field distribution of a traveling wave along the tapered slot, and 2) compute the radiation from this slot field by using the half-plane Green's function to account for termination effects. Acceptable estimates of the slot field usually can be obtained from a stepped approximation to the tapered geometry. The method has been verified by comparisons to measured patterns for various dielectric substrates and antenna dimensions. However, the effect of lateral truncation has not yet been successfully modeled. Experimental patterns showing this effect are presented.

Analysis of the tapered slot antenna

Endfire tapered slot antennas are suitable for many integrated circuit applications, imaging and phased arrays. We report on an investigation of single elements of such antennas, including slots which are exponentially tapered (Vivaldi), linearly tapered (LTSA) and constant width (CWSA). For antennas of all types, a good general agreement is obtained for curves of beamwidth versus length, normalized to wavelength, when one compares the data with that for traveling-wave antennas published by Zucker. An important condition for this agreement is that the effective dielectric thickness, defined in the text, is in a certain optimum range. This condition is qualitatively explained in terms of the theory for traveling-wave antennas.

E. Kollberg

Papers

Endfire tapered slot antennas on dielectric substrates