Full 3-D Printed Microwave Termination: A Simple and Low-Cost Solution

Abstract

International audienceThis paper describes the realization and characterization of microwave 3-D printed loads in rectangular waveguide technology. Several commercial materials were characterized at X-band (8-12 GHz). Their dielectric properties were extracted through the use of a cavity-perturbation method and a transmission/reflection rectangular waveguide method. A lossy carbon-loaded Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) polymer was selected to realize a matched load between 8 and 12 GHz. Two different types of terminations were realized by fused deposition modeling: a hybrid 3-D printed termination (metallic waveguide + pyramidal polymer absorber + metallic short circuit) and a full 3-D printed termination (self-consistent matched load). Voltage standing wave ratio of less than 1.075 and 1.025 were measured over X-band for the hybrid and full 3-D printed terminations, respectively. Power behavior of the full 3-D printed termination was investigated. A very linear evolution of reflected power as a function of incident power amplitude was observed at 10 GHz up to 11.5 W. These 3-D printed devices appear as a very low cost solution for the realization of microwave matched loads in rectangular waveguide technology

3-D printing of microwave components for 21st century applications

“…The components that are printed can have micro air pockets and are not always uniform; a study of their dielectric properties was undertaken by Deffenbaugh et al [2]. Further dielectric property characterization by Arbaoui et al [3] showed that, while some of the materials are lossy, they can be used to create electromagnetic absorbers. The absorber they demonstrated has a VSWR of less than 1.025 across the whole of X-Band (8.5 to 12 GHz) and an ability to handle power levels up to 11.5 W. The fill density of the 3-D print can be used to create a variety of components.…”

Application of Direct Metal Laser Sintering to Waveguide-Based Passive Microwave Components, Antennas, and Antenna Arrays

“…If the AM technology can advance to allow printing with hybrid materials, aluminum with carbon-loaded acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) polymer [36], then one can design the multiway waveguide combiner as introduced in Section V without the need to transit to an SMA connector for the terminated ports.…”

Matched loads using substrate integrated waveguide and shaped absorbing material for KA‐/Q‐band applications

“…In addition, due to the measurement instrument limitation, the dielectric and magnetic properties of the utilized MAM are only available up to 18 GHz, as shown in Figure 4. Therefore, the approximate values of these properties are used in the simulation at other higher frequency [9]. By deriving and fitting with the dielectric and magnetic properties at lower frequency, their approximate values for millimeter wave simulation are chosen as: e 0 5 14, l 0 5 1.1, tane 5 0.024, tanl 5 1.15. where e 0 , l 0 , tane, and tanl are real parts of the relative permittivity and permeability, and the dielectric and magnetic loss tangents, respectively.…”

“…On the other hand, photonic crystals (PTC), metamaterials (MM) and lossy material have been loaded into costly shorted rectangular waveguide (RWG) to constitute matched loads for millimeter wave applications [6][7][8]. Particularly, the three-dimensional (3D) printed RWG-shaped polymer matched load reported in [9] provides a simple and low-cost solution. Nevertheless, the 3D structure of RWG matched loads restrains their applications in system integration.…”