lens is placed in front of the hyperhemisphere lens, for additional focusing.

Using either the single elliptical lens or hyperhemisphere/plano-convex lens combination produces a diffraction-limited antenna beam. A second solution introduced involved turning the lens around and using it as a reflector (33). The lens surface has a parabolic shape, then is metalized. The substrate chip containing the antenna and detector are attached at the focus of the lens. This dielectric-filled parabola again makes use of the fact that the antenna power radiates mostly into the dielectric. The rays from the antenna couple strongly into the dielectric, are reflected, and come out the flat surface of the parabola, producing a collimated beam. Beam measurements were taken with different antenna structures at the lens's focus, and they showed expected E-field and H-field patterns for each single element antenna. Another receiver implementation involved patterning the antenna on a thin dielectric membrane (34). Using a 1-micron thick membrane, this effectively allows the antenna to radiate in free space. At 500 GHz, the free-space wavelength is 600 microns. Using the constraint t < o to determine a substrate 10

thickness in which surface waves are negligible, this places a maximum membrane thickness at 60 microns, which scales with frequency. Thus, this implementation is extendible up through the infrared spectrum. Since the antenna radiates equally in both directions away from the membrane, a reflector must be placed on the back side of the membrane to ensure unidirectional antenna patterns. The planar antenna used for testing this technology was a log-periodic, with a frequency range of 100 to 1400 GHz. Patterns were measured in both directions from the membrane, and showed symmetric E- and H- plane patterns with similar beamwidths and cross-polarization levels for both.

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2.3 Gain and Bandwidth Although it has been stated that several of the planar antennas introduced have wide bandwidths, sometimes of an octave or more, the operating bandwidth of the antenna integrated within the receiver must be considered. Due to the quasi-optical nature of these antennas, some sort of optical elements are used for focusing and directing the incoming radiation. For lenses, each will have losses due to reflection and absorption. These losses can be significant. The reflection loss is proportional to the mismatch of the index of refractions for air and the lens's dielectric material. Thus, using a substrate material and lens with a higher dielectric constant increases the power radiated into the substrate, and thus the efficiency of the antenna, but this substrate material also results in larger reflection losses. Although the absorption loss cannot be reduced, the reflection loss can be reduced over some bandwidth, and practically eliminated in a small band around a center frequency, with the use of a quarter-wave coating on the lens. The requirements for the coating are: a) that the thickness be equal to the physical length of a quarter wavelength in the coating, and; b) the index of refraction for the coating material is found from,

ncoating = nlens nair

(2.4)

This is the geometric mean, and is equivalent to finding the correct width for a quarterwave transformer in microwave circuits. Ultimately a compromise must be reached between limiting the overall bandwidth of the receiver and increasing it's response.

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For receivers implemented without focusing lenses, they require a reflector placed behind the antenna for optimum operation. This performance is a function of the distance between the antenna and reflector, and as expected, the optimum distance is a quarter wavelength. Thus, due to the fixed-tuning nature of quasi-optical receivers, superior performance comes at the cost of ultra-wide bandwidth. Another consideration to address is matching the impedance of the planar antenna and the detector. When designing the integrated antenna/detector, it
 (35), has been found that the center frequency and peak impedance vary with n

where,

= n

( r + 1) 2

(2.5)

which is just the average of the index of refractions for the substrate and air. This factor can be incorporated into the design, but the dielectric constant is a function of frequency. For matching the antenna to the detector some kind of impedance transformer is usually used, which itself will be optimal in some relative bandwidth. Thus the design tradeoff to enhance receiver performance will come by optimizing the matching of the antenna and detector over some limited bandwidth.

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CHAPTER 3 PURPOSE OF THESIS

3.1 Statement of Problem Twin-slot quasi-optical SIS mixers are used as receivers in submillimeter astronomy. Preliminary work as been done on the theoretical aspects of this antenna. Measurements of the beam patterns of these receivers and comparison of the data to theoretical predictions needs to be done. Actual data needs to be gathered and analyzed, to gain a better understanding of the mechanics of this antenna configuration.

3.2 Purpose of Study Measurements of the beam patterns will provide a greater understanding of the optical characteristics of the mixers and receivers, such as beam waist locations, efficiency of the lenses used, and power in the sidelobes versus power in the main beam. Ultimately, this knowledge will aid in the future development of more sensitive submillimeter receivers, and possibly the implementation of single-sideband receivers or twin-slot antenna arrays.

3.3 Hypotheses The following statements represent the expected outcomes resulting from this study.

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