Design of Micromachined Patch Antenna with Performance Enhancement for Millimeter Wave Applications

Abstract

This thesis presents the design and characterization of micromachined microstrip patch antenna for millimeter wave applications. The center frequency of the antenna is 60GHz. Since the frequency is high and the antenna size is small, the use of micromachining techniques is very convenient. There are three micromachining methods used to make improvements on the patch antenna performance by making modifications on the substrate to make its effective permittivity low. A conventional inset fed patch antenna with Gallium Arsenide GaAs is firstly designed and then different micromachining approaches have been applied to the initial design to investigate the effect on antenna parameters. The first method of micromachining is the bulk micromachining with its two types wet and dry etching, then the photolithography is applied to make the electromagnetic band gap (EBG) holes. An antenna structure combining the two micromachining techniques bulk and EBG micromachining has been investigated. Moreover, a micromachined patch antenna using the air as a substrate is presented in this thesis. A comparison has finally been carried out on the different designs of the micromachined antenna. Every design has its own improvements on the bandwidth and the gain in comparison to the conventional design. The programs used in this thesis are the CST microwave studio and the HFSS simulator to make simulations.