Frontiers in antenna applications

Abstract

Summary form only given. Work on imaging arrays and oscillator grids is discussed. The goal of the work on imaging arrays is to make a millimeter-wave television camera that would allow one to see through fog and smoke. For this, two-dimensional monolithic focal-plane arrays for 90 and 240 GHz have been developed. These consist of pyramidal horns that are chemically etched in a silicon wafer and a thin-film metal probe dipole suspended on a 1- mu m-thick layer of silicon oxynitride. With room-temperature Schottky-diode detectors, this array would be suitable for terrestrial all-weather imaging. The idea of the oscillator-grid work is to combine the output power of a large number of solid-state devices in a single plane wave. This would allow one to make compact high-power solid-state millimeter-wave radar and communications transmitters. The approach is to place a periodic grid loaded with FETs inside a Fabry-Perot resonator.<>