Open Access
Low-sidelobe-level millimeter-wave asymmetric bull's eye antenna with minimal profile feeding
(IEEE, 2024) Navarro Cía, Miguel; Beaskoetxea Gartzia, Unai; Teniente Vallinas, Jorge; Beruete Díaz, Miguel; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren
Bull’s eye antennas exhibit remarkable directivity considering their low profile, albeit accompanied by high sidelobes. This undesirable radiation characteristic is tackled here by reporting a complementary split ring feeding whereby the broadside space-wave partially responsible for the high sidelobes is cancelled while the leaky wave is excited effectively. This feeding results in an asymmetric bull’s eye antenna with minimal profile (∼ 0.73λ0) and no protrusions on the radiating interface. The fabricated 10-period antenna operating in the Ka-band shows a directivity of 23.5 dBi, a sidelobe level of −22.9 dB (>6 dB improvement compared to other bull’s eye antennas) and a beamwidth of 3.7◦ and 6.7◦ in the E- and H-plane, respectively.
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
Design and characterization of terahertz CORPS beam forming networks
(Springer, 2023) Biurrun Quel, Carlos; Haddad, Thomas; Sievert, Benedikt; Kress, Robin; Weimann, Nils; Erni, Daniel; Rennings, Andreas; Stöhr, Andreas; Teniente Vallinas, Jorge; Río Bocio, Carlos del; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
This work reviews the design and applicability of beam-forming networks based on Coherently Radiating Periodic Structures (CORPS-BFN) at Terahertz (THz) frequency bands. These versatile networks offer two operation modes: a continuous beam steering – feeding an antenna array with a linearly progressive phase distribution – using a reduced number of phase controls; or a multi-beam operation, generating independent, overlapped beams. These networks are built upon the concatenation of power combiners/dividers (PCDs) with isolated outputs. The isolation is provided by monolithically integrated resistors, implemented with Ti/TiO thin films for the first time. In this work, a planar prototype of a (inputs/outputs) microstrip CORPS-BFN for operation in the WR3.4/WM-864 band (220–330 GHz) on a thin 50 m Indium Phosphide (InP) substrate is designed, fabricated, and characterized. The measured S-parameters show a reflection coefficient better than -15 dB and an insertion loss between 1.6 and 3.2 dB in the whole band. In addition, an isolation better than 20 dB between the input ports has been measured. An overall remarkable agreement is observed between the measurements and the simulations. Last, the applications, scalability and efficiency of this type of networks at the targeted band are discussed in detail.
Open Access
Fully metallic Luneburg metalens antenna in gap waveguide technology at V-band
(IEEE, 2023) Pérez Quintana, Dayan; Bilitos, Christos; Ruiz-García, Jorge; Ederra Urzainqui, Íñigo; Teniente Vallinas, Jorge; González-Ovejero, David; Beruete Díaz, Miguel; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
This article presents the design of a flat Luneburg metalens antenna at V-band using gap waveguide (GW) technology. The metalens consists of a parallel plate waveguide (PPW) loaded with metallic pins whose height is modulated to get an effective refractive index that follows the Luneburg equation. A Groove GW (GGW) H-plane horn is used to illuminate the metalens, such that the rays are collimated and a planar wavefront is generated in the direction of propagation. Since the structure at hand is planar, it can be efficiently integrated on flat surfaces. Moreover, the fully metallic structure is mechanically robust and presents lower losses than lenses including dielectric substrates. A prototype has been fabricated and tested, simulations and experimental results are in very good agreement. The metalens yields an input reflection coefficient (S11) below −10 dB from 45 to 70 GHz, whereas the −3 dB gain fractional bandwidth is 26.2% with respect to a center frequency of 60 GHz, with a peak of 22.5 dB at 61 GHz. These features make this design an interesting solution for millimeter-wave (MMW) applications.
Open Access
New coplanar waveguide based on the gap waveguide technology
(IEEE, 2021) Biurrun Quel, Carlos; Teniente Vallinas, Jorge; Río Bocio, Carlos del; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
A new planar waveguide, coined Inverted coplanar gap waveguide is presented. The concept of gap waveguides and parallel plate suppression between perfect magnetic and a perfect electric conductors is applied to coplanar waveguides in order to create a low-dispersion, low-loss transmission line. The combination of an artificial magnetic conductor and channelized top cover allow the propagation of an even coplanar mode with a strong component propagating over the air while solving encapsulation matters without the use of metallic vias. The main theory behind this new concept is presented and supported by FEM simulations on a commercial software package.
Open Access
Highly efficient focusing of terahertz waves with an ultrathin superoscillatory metalens: experimental demonstration
(Wiley, 2021-05-06) Legaria Lerga, Santiago; Teniente Vallinas, Jorge; Kuznetsov, Sergei A.; Pacheco-Peña, Víctor; Beruete Díaz, Miguel; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
The performance of an ultrathin (thickness < 0.04λ 0) metasurface superoscillatory lens (metaSOL) is experimentally demonstrated in the terahertz (THz) range. The metaSOL is designed using two different hexagonal unit cells to improve the efficiency and properties of the conventional transparent–opaque zoning approach. The focusing metastructure produces, at a frequency f exp = 295 GHz, a sharp focal spot 8.9λ exp away from its output surface with a transversal resolution of 0.52λ exp (≈25% below the resolution limit imposed by diffraction), a power enhancement of 18.2 dB, and very low side lobe level (−13 dB). Resolution below the diffraction limit is demonstrated in a broad fractional operation bandwidth of 18%. The focusing capabilities of the proposed metaSOL show its potential use in a range of applications such as THz imaging, microscopy, and communications.
Open Access
Photonic-assisted 2-D terahertz beam steering enabled by a LWA array monolithically integrated with a BFN
(Optica, 2022) Haddad, Thomas; Biurrun Quel, Carlos; Lu, Peng; Tebart, Jonas; Sievert, Benedikt; Makhlouf, Sumer; Grzeslo, Marcel; Teniente Vallinas, Jorge; Río Bocio, Carlos del; Stöhr, Andreas; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren
A novel photonic-assisted 2-D Terahertz beam steering chip using only two tuning elements is presented. The chip is based on an array of three leaky wave antennas (LWAs) with a monolithically integrated beamforming network (BFN) on a 50 µm-thick indium phosphide substrate. The THz beam angle in elevation (E-plane) is controlled via optical frequency tuning using a tunable dual-wavelength laser. An optical delay line is used for azimuth (H-plane) beam control. The simulated beam scanning range is 92° in elevation for a frequency sweep from 0.23 THz to 0.33 THz and 69.18° in azimuth for a time delay of 3.6 ps. For the frequency range from 0.26 THz to 0.32 THz, it is confirmed experimentally that the THz beam scans from −12° to +33°, which is in good agreement with the numerical simulations. The beam direction in azimuth scans with a total angle of 39° when applying a delay difference of 1.68 ps. A good agreement is found between theoretically predicted and experimentally determined THz beam angles with a maximum angle deviation below 5°. The experimental scanning angles are limited due to the mechanical constraints of the on-wafer probes, the on-chip integrated transition and the bandwidth of the THz receiver LNA. The mechanical limitation will be overcome when using a packaged chip.
Open Access
The Canfranc Axion Detection Experiment (CADEx): search for axions at 90 GHz with Kinetic Inductance Detectors
(IOP Publishing, 2022) Aja, Beatriz; Arguedas Cuendis, Sergio; Arregui Padilla, Iván; Artal, Eduardo; Barreiro, R. Belén; Casas, Francisco J.; Ory, Marina C. de; Díaz-Morcillo, Alejandro; Fuente, Luisa de la; Gallego, Juan Daniel; García-Barceló, José María; Gimeno, Benito; Gómez, Alicia; Granados, Daniel; Kavanagh, Bradley J.; Gómez Laso, Miguel Ángel; Lopetegui Beregaña, José María; Lozano-Guerrero, Antonio José; Magaz, María T.; Martín-Pintado, Jesús; Martínez-González, Enrique; Miralda-Escudé, Jordi; Monzó-Cabrera, Juan; Najarro de la Parra, Francisco; Navarro-Madrid, José R.; Núñez Chico, Ana B.; Pascual, Juan Pablo; Pelegrin, Jorge; Peña Garay, Carlos; Rodríguez, David; Socuéllamos, Juan M.; Teberio Berdún, Fernando; Teniente Vallinas, Jorge; Vielva, Patricio; Vila, Iván; Vilar, Rocío; Villa, Enrique; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren
We propose a novel experiment, the Canfranc Axion Detection Experiment (CADEx), to probe dark matter axions with masses in the range 330–460 μeV, within the W-band (80–110 GHz), an unexplored parameter space in the well-motivated dark matter window of Quantum ChromoDynamics (QCD) axions. The experimental design consists of a microwave resonant cavity haloscope in a high static magnetic field coupled to a highly sensitive detecting system based on Kinetic Inductance Detectors via optimized quasi-optics (horns and mirrors). The experiment is in preparation and will be installed in the dilution refrigerator of the Canfranc Underground Laboratory. Sensitivity forecasts for axion detection with CADEx, together with the potential of the experiment to search for dark photons, are presented.
Open Access
Ultrathin and high-efficiency Pancharatnam-Berry phase metalens for millimeter waves
(AIP Publishing, 2021) Moreno-Peñarrubia, Alexia; Teniente Vallinas, Jorge; Kuznetsov, Sergei A.; Orazbayev, Bakhtiyar; Beruete Díaz, Miguel; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación
Applying the Pancharatnam–Berry (PB) principle to half-wave plate (HWP) metasurfaces allows the manipulation of wavefronts along with the conversion of the handedness of circularly polarized incident waves by simply rotating the meta-atoms that compose the metasurface. PB metasurfaces (PBM) working in transmission mode with four or more layers have been demonstrated to reach levels of transmission effi- ciency near 100% but also have resulted in bulky structures. On the other hand, compact tri-layer ultrathin (k/8) designs have reached levels near 90% but are more challenging than single- or bi-layer structures from a manufacturing viewpoint. Here, we propose a compact ultrathin (
Open Access
A metasurface-enhanced substrate-integrated waveguide antenna
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2024) Chocarro Álvarez, Javier; Pérez Escudero, José Manuel; Teniente Vallinas, Jorge; Iriarte Galarregui, Juan Carlos; Ederra Urzainqui, Íñigo; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoa eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritza; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa.
The design, manufacture and characterization of a slotted waveguide antenna using substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW) technology combined with a metasurface are described in this paper. The inclusion of the metasurface serves to augment the radiating aperture and narrows the E-plane cut of the antenna pattern, a characteristic that would otherwise be dictated by the slots. For demonstration, an 8-element slotted SIW (S-SIW) antenna array with a -20 dB sidelobe level Chebyshev distribution was designed and its performance was compared to that of a conventional slotted SIW array. Owing to the metasurface, the radiation pattern E-plane narrows and 3 dB gain improvement has been achieved, while keeping matching unaffected.