Open Access
A gap waveguide-based compact rectangular waveguide to a packaged microstrip inline transition
(MDPI, 2020) Pérez Escudero, José Manuel; Torres García, Alicia E.; Gonzalo García, Ramón; Ederra Urzainqui, Íñigo; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
In this paper two different simple to design and easy to manufacturing transitions from a microstrip to rectangular waveguide based on ridge and groove gap waveguides are studied. The first one is based on a combination of a groove and ridge gap waveguide. In this case, the microstrip substrate occupies the whole bottom metallic housing block, namely, the transition and the gap between the bed of nails and the lid; therefore, it does not require any substrate shaping. Nevertheless, the transition needs to replace groove waveguide by ridge gap waveguide sections to avoid higher-order mode excitation. In the second approach, based on only a groove gap waveguide, the substrate is shaped to be only in the microstrip section, that is, outside the bed of nails area. This leads to a simplification of the design procedure. Prototypes of both transitions have been characterized, showing good agreement with the simulations taking into account the manufacturing tolerances. Performance comparable to the state-of-the-art in this frequency band has been achieved.
Open Access
Silicon integrated subharmonic mixer on a photonic-crystal platform
(IEEE, 2021) Torres García, Alicia E.; Pérez Escudero, José Manuel; Teniente Vallinas, Jorge; Gonzalo García, Ramón; Ederra Urzainqui, Íñigo; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación
This paper presents a planar silicon integrated subharmonic mixer on top of a photonic-crystal platform. The local oscillator (LO) power is injected through a 2D photoniccrystal (PC) slab to a resonant cavity that effectively couples the signal to a planar bow-tie antenna. The same antenna, which is printed on the top of the PC cavity, contains an antiparallel Schottky diode pair which performs the down-conversion. The proposed design is a simple, easy to integrate, low cost, low profile device. Moreover, the described fabrication process is compatible with active components integration. The performance of the design has been experimentally demonstrated showing good agreement with the simulation and is comparable with the stateof-the-art of planar mixers. The work presented here is based on concepts and technologies from electronics and photonics domains and may be a good starting point for the creation of new devices, allowing the integration and upgrading of existing techniques from both worlds.
Open Access
A Chebyshev transformer-based microstri-to-groove-gap-waveguide inline transition for MMIC packaging
(IEEE, 2019) Pérez Escudero, José Manuel; Torres García, Alicia E.; Gonzalo García, Ramón; Ederra Urzainqui, Íñigo; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación
The gap waveguide technology has become an alternative to millimeter- and submillimeter-wave electronic circuit packaging thanks to the loss reduction associated with its use. In this paper, a simplified design of an inline transition between a microstrip and a groove gap waveguide (GGW) operating at the W-band is presented. The transition consists of a tapered microstrip line and a Chebyshev adapter that couple the quasi-TEM mode of the microstrip line to the so-called vertical mode of the GGW. The simplicity of this design makes this transition appropriate for monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) packaging at millimeter frequencies and above. The simulation results have been experimentally validated in the W-band. A good performance has been achieved, resulting in a return loss better than 10 dB and a mean insertion loss lower than 2 dB.
Open Access
Comparison of modified Soret lenses for dual band integrated detectors
(IEEE, 2020) Torres García, Alicia E.; Pérez Escudero, José Manuel; Gonzalo García, Ramón; Ederra Urzainqui, Íñigo; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación
This paper presents the comparison of different modified Soret lenses suitable for a millimeter and submillimeterwave dualband integrated pixel detectors. The approach is based on the modification of a printed planar Soret lens, designed to operate in the sub-mm range, to obtain an antenna at the millimeter region. Three modifications of a transmission-mode Soret Lens at 850 GHz based on spiral, logarithmic and meander antennas geometries have been analyzed with a combination of Kirchhoffs Diffraction and full-wave simulation methods. The performance of the designs has been experimentally demonstrated in the submillimeterwave band, showing good agreement with simulation results.
Open Access
300 GHz optoelectronic transmitter combining integrated photonics and electronic multipliers for wireless communication
(MDPI, 2019) Ali, Muhsin; Pérez Escudero, José Manuel; Guzmán Martínez, Robinson Cruzoe; Lo, Mu Chieh; Ederra Urzainqui, Íñigo; Gonzalo García, Ramón; García Muñoz, Luis Enrique; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren
THz communications systems at carrier frequencies above 200 GHz are the key to enable next-generation mobile communication networks with 100 Gbit/s wireless data rates. One of the key questions is, which carrier frequency generation technique will be the most suitable. This is currently addressed by two separate approaches, electronics-based and photonics-based. We present in this paper a truly microwave photonic approach that benefits from the main key features of each, bandwidth, tunability, stability and fiber compatibility from photonics and power handling capability from the electronics. It is based on a Photonic Local Oscillator (PLO), generating a 100 GHz frequency, fed into an electronic frequency multiplier. A high speed uni-travelling carrier photodiode (UTC-PD) provides the 100 GHz PLO for Schottky tripler diodes, generating 300 GHz signal. To feed the UTC-PD, we present a photonic integrated mode locked laser source. According to the simulations and measurements, the developed transmitter can produce a maximum of 12 μWof THz power at 280 GHz.
Open Access
A millimeter-wave 4th-harmonic Schottky diode mixer with integrated local oscillator
(MDPI, 2021) Pérez Escudero, José Manuel; Quemada Mayoral, Carlos; Gonzalo García, Ramón; Ederra Urzainqui, Íñigo; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación
In this paper the design and experimental validation of a fourth-harmonic mixer based on Schottky diodes working around 300 GHz is presented. The main novelty of this work consists in the integration of an MMIC-based local oscillator, working around 75 GHz, and a mixer in the same metallic block housing. A prototype has been characterized using the Y-Factor method and yields a best measured conversion loss and an equivalent noise temperature of 14 dB and 9600 K, respectively. This performance is comparable to the state-of-the-art for this type of mixer.
Open Access
A simplified design inline microstrip-to-waveguide transition
(MDPI, 2018) Ederra Urzainqui, Íñigo; Gonzalo García, Ramón; Pérez Escudero, José Manuel; Torres García, Alicia E.; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación
A simplified design of an inline transition between microstrip and rectangular waveguide is presented in this paper. The transition makes use of a dielectric filled rectangular waveguide (DFRW) as an intermediate step, which simplifies manufacturing and allows for an analytical design. The behavior of the transition has been experimentally validated in the W-band by means of a back-to-back configuration. Good performance has been achieved: a return loss greaterthan 10 dB and mean insertion loss lower than 1 dB.
Open Access
Modified Soret lenses for dual band integrated detectors at submillimetre and millimetre wavelengths
(IEEE, 2020) Torres García, Alicia E.; Pérez Escudero, José Manuel; Gonzalo García, Ramón; Ederra Urzainqui, Íñigo; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación
This paper presents a planar silicon integrated subharmonic mixer on top of a photonic-crystal platform. The local oscillator (LO) power is injected through a 2D photonic crystal (PC) slab to a resonant cavity that effectively couples the signal to a planar bow-tie antenna. The same antenna, which is printed on the top of the PC cavity, contains an antiparallel Schottky diode pair which performs the down-conversion. The proposed design is a simple, easy to integrate, low cost, low profile device. Moreover, the described fabrication process is compatible with active components integration. The performance of the design has been experimentally demonstrated showing good agreement with the simulation and is comparable with the state of-the-art of planar mixers. The work presented here is based on concepts and technologies from electronics and photonics domains and may be a good starting point for the creation of new devices, allowing the integration and upgrading of existing techniques from both worlds.
Open Access
Design of a groove gap waveguide to microstrip inline transition
(IEEE, 2019) Pérez Escudero, José Manuel; Torres García, Alicia E.; Gonzalo García, Ramón; Ederra Urzainqui, Íñigo; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación
In this paper the design of an inline transition between microstrip and groove gap waveguide operating at Wband is presented. The transition consists of two sections: a tapered microstrip line and a Chebyshev transformer. The simplicity of this design makes this transition appropriate for MMIC packaging at millimeter frequencies and above. Experimental validation has been carried out in theW-band. Good performance has been achieved: return loss better than 10 dB and mean insertion loss lower than 2 dB.
Open Access
Comparison of fourth-harmonic and combined doubler/subharmonic mixer with integrated MMIC based local oscillator
(IEEE, 2019) Pérez Escudero, José Manuel; Quemada Mayoral, Carlos; Gonzalo García, Ramón; Ederra Urzainqui, Íñigo; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
In this paper a comparison between a fourth harmonic mixer and a combined doubler/subharmonic mixer based on Schottky diodes working at 300 GHz with MMIC Local Oscillator (LO) integrated in a single enclosing is presented. Both configurations allow reducing the LO requirements, since a lower LO frequency is used. In addition, the integration of the MMIC Local Oscillator with the mixer in the same single metallic block is the main novelty and advantage of this work. Since only one block is used, flange connections are avoided. This way, misalignment errors are also prevented. Besides this advantage, the compactness of this solution is also remarkable, leading to a significant weight reduction.