TY - JOUR A1 - Gaebler, A. A1 - Moessinger, A. A1 - Goelden, F. A1 - Manabe, A. A1 - Goebel, M. A1 - Follmann, R. A1 - Koether, D. A1 - Modes, C. A1 - Kipka, A. A1 - Deckelmann, M. A1 - Rabe, Torsten A1 - Schulz, Bärbel A1 - Kuchenbecker, Petra A1 - Lapanik, A. A1 - Mueller, S. A1 - Haase, W. A1 - Jakoby, R. T1 - Liquid crystal-reconfigurable antenna concepts for space applications at microwave and millimeter waves N2 - Novel approaches of tunable devices for millimeter wave applications based on liquid crystal (LC) are presented. In the first part of the paper, a novel concept of a tunable LC phase shifter realized in Low Temperature Cofired Ceramics technology is shown while the second part of the paper deals with a tunable high-gain antenna based on an LC tunable reflectarray. The reflectarray features continuously beam scanning in between ±25°. Also first investigations on radiation hardness of LCs are carried out, indicating that LCs might be suitable for space applications. KW - Tunable antenna KW - Phase shifter KW - Liquid crystal KW - LTCC PY - 2009 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-194273 SN - 1687-5877 VL - 2009 IS - Article ID 876989 SP - 1 EP - 7 PB - Hindawi Publishing Corporation CY - New York, NY, USA AN - OPUS4-19427 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Prasetiadi, A. E. A1 - Jost, M. A1 - Schulz, Bärbel A1 - Quibeldey, M. A1 - Rabe, Torsten A1 - Follmann, R. A1 - Jakoby, R. T1 - Liquid-Crystal-Based Amplitude Tuner Fabricated N2 - A 30GHz liquid-crystal-based amplitude tuner is proposed for the first time. The amplitude of a signal can be controlled by using the interference principle. An input signal is divided into a tunable liquid crystal phase shifter and a fixed transmission line. Later, the divided signals are combined together at the output port. The output amplitude depends on the phase difference between the tunable and the fixed line. The low temperature co-fired ceramic technology is utilized to fabricate the device. The measurement shows an attenuation range of 11 dB to 30 dB with a maximum biasing voltage of 100V. T2 - 12th European Microwave Integrated Circuits Conference CY - Nürnberg, Germany DA - 09.10.2017 KW - LTCC technology KW - Liquid crystals KW - RF components PY - 2017 SN - 978-2-87487-048-4 SN - 2325-0305 SP - 345 EP - 348 PB - IEEE AN - OPUS4-44752 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Prasetiadi, A .E. A1 - Jost, M. A1 - Schulz, Bärbel A1 - Quibelday, M. A1 - Rabe, Torsten A1 - Follmann, R. A1 - Jakoby, R. T1 - Liquid-Crystal-Based Amplitude Tuner Fabricated N2 - 30GHz liquid-crystal-based amplitude tuner is proposed for the first time. The amplitude of a signal can be controlled by using the interference principle. An input Signal is divided into a tunable liquid crystal phase shifter and a fixed transmission line. Later, the divided signals are combined together at the output port. The output amplitude depends on the phase difference between the tunable and the fixed line. The low temperature co-fired ceramic technology is utilized to fabricate the device. The measurement shows an attenuation range of 11 dB to 30 dB with a maximum biasing voltage of 100V. T2 - 47th European Microwave Conference CY - Nürnberg, Germany DA - 10.10.2017 KW - LTCC technology KW - Liquid crystals KW - RF components PY - 2017 SN - 978-2-87487-047-7 SN - 2325-0305 SP - 1085 EP - 1088 PB - IEEE AN - OPUS4-44753 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Jost, M. A1 - Strunck, S. A1 - Heunisch, Andreas A1 - Wiens, A. A1 - Prasetiadi, A.E. A1 - Weickhmann, C. A1 - Schulz, Bärbel A1 - Quibeldey, M. A1 - Karabey, O.H. A1 - Rabe, Torsten A1 - Follmann, R. A1 - Koether, D. A1 - Jakoby, R. T1 - Continuously tuneable liquid crystal based stripline phase shifter realised in LTCC technology N2 - This work presents the design, fabrication and measurements of a low temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC) integrated liquid crystal (LC) phase shifter. The effective permittivity of the phase shifter and therefore its differential phase shift can be tuned continuously by orienting the LC directors with electric fields. The phase-shift demonstrator is designed for Ka-band frequencies around 30 GHz and represents a stripline filled with LC, embedded inside an LTCC multilayer structure, which provides a space-qualified and hermetically-sealed LC cavity within an RF-capable material system. The total length of the device is 37 mm while the phase shifting LC section has a length of 14.6 mm. At 30 GHz it exhibits a differential phase shift of 60° with an insertion loss around 6 dB, resulting in a figure of merit around 10°/dB. An advantage is that the insertion loss is nearly independent of the tuning state of the LC. The response time of the phase shifter, depending on the desired LC orientation, is between 62 ms and 37 s. T2 - EuMC 2015 - 45th European microwave conference CY - Paris, France DA - 07.09.2015 PY - 2015 SN - 978-2-87487-039-2 SP - 1260 EP - 1263 AN - OPUS4-35268 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Nikfalazar, M. A1 - Kohler, C. A1 - Heunisch, Andreas A1 - Wiens, A. A1 - Zheng, Y. A1 - Schulz, Bärbel A1 - Mikolajek, M. A1 - Sohrabi, M. A1 - Rabe, Torsten A1 - Binder, R. A1 - Jakoby, R. T1 - LTCC phase shifters based on tunable ferroelectric composite thick films N2 - This paper presents, the investigation of tunable components based on LTCC technology, implementing ferroelectric tunable thick-film dielectric. The tunable loaded line phase shifters are fabricated with metal-insulator-metal (MIM) varactors to demonstrate the capabilities of this method for packaging of the tunable components. The MIM varactors consist of one tunable dielectric paste layer that is printed between two silver layers. The tunable ferroelectric paste is optimized for LTCC sintering temperature around 850°C. The phase shifters are fabricated in two different process. They were achieved a figure of merit of 24°/dB (phase shift 192°) at 3 GHz and 18°/dB (phase shift 98°) at 4.4 GHz by using seven unit cells that each unit cell consisting of two MIM varactors. KW - Ferroelectric KW - LTCC KW - Phase shifter KW - Fully printed component KW - BST PY - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/freq-2015-0082 SN - 0016-1136 SN - 2191-6349 VL - 69 IS - 11-12 SP - 451 EP - 455 PB - De Gruyter CY - Berlin ; Boston, Mass. AN - OPUS4-34949 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Strunck, S. A1 - Gaebler, A. A1 - Karabey, O.H. A1 - Heunisch, Andreas A1 - Schulz, Bärbel A1 - Rabe, Torsten A1 - Follmann, R. A1 - Kassner, J. A1 - Koether, D. A1 - Manabe, A. A1 - Jakoby, R. T1 - Reliability study of a tunable ka-band SIW-phase shifter based on liquid crystal in LTCC-technology N2 - A tunable substrate-integrated waveguide phase shifter using low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC)-technology is presented in this paper. By changing the effective permittivity in the liquid crystal (LC)-filled waveguide, the differential phase can be tuned continuously. This is achieved by means of an analog signal applied to the electrodes, surrounding the LC. The design allows for precise tuning of the differential phase, which is proven with a Monte Carlo measurement resulting in phase errors of less than 3° at 28 GHz. Besides that, the ambient temperature dependency of the module is shown. The phase shifter has a high integration level and can be included into a complete and lightweight single-phased array antenna module. The phase shifter is realized with a high level of integration which is available through the multilayer process of the LTCC. It has a length of 50 and provides a differential phase shift of more than 360° at 28 GHz. The figure of merit for tunable phase shifters is >40°/dB. KW - Passive components and circuits KW - New and emerging technologies and materials PY - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S175907871400083X SN - 1759-0787 SN - 1759-0795 SP - 1 EP - 7 PB - Cambridge Univ. Press CY - Cambridge AN - OPUS4-31198 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Prasetiadi, A. E. A1 - Jost, M. A1 - Schulz, Baerbel A1 - Quibeldey, M. A1 - Rabe, Torsten A1 - Follmann, R. A1 - Jakoby, R. T1 - Liquid-crystal-based amplitude tuner and tunable SIW filter fabricated in LTCC technology N2 - Tunable microwave devices will play an important role in future wireless systems, in which high-frequency bands, e.g. millimeter waves, will become promising, due to its huge spectrum availability. At such frequency bands, liquid crystals (LCs) exhibit low microwave loss, which is excellent compared with the other tuning elements. In this paper, LC-based microwave components are fabricated by using low temperature co-fired ceramic technology, allowing the integration of the LC into microwave structures. The first component, the Amplitude tuner, controls the signal’s amplitude by using the interference concept, which exhibits a tunable attenuation range from 11 dB to 30 dB at 30 GHz. The second component is a 3-pole tunable bandpass filter, which is realized by using a substrate integrated waveguide topology, enabling a device with comparatively high-quality factors (Q-factors). The measurement results show Q-factors in the range of 68 to 100 for a frequency tuning of 29.4–30.1 GHz, i.e. a tuning range of 700 MHz, accompanied by an insertion loss 2 dB to 4 dB. KW - Passive components and circuits KW - Filters KW - Microwave technology PY - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1759078718000600 SN - 1759-0787 VL - 10 IS - 5-6 SP - 674 EP - 681 PB - Cambridge University Press AN - OPUS4-46985 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kohler, C. A1 - Nikfalazar, M. A1 - Heunisch, Andreas A1 - Schulz, Bärbel A1 - Mikolajek, M. A1 - Rabe, Torsten A1 - Jakoby, R. A1 - Binder, J. T1 - Implementation of Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3-ZnO-B2O3 based tunable microwave phase shifters in LTCC technology N2 - Tunable dielectric Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3-ZnO-B2O3 thick-films were analyzed regarding their integration potential into the LTCC technology. Therefore, tunable loaded line phase shifters based on metal-insulator-metal varactors with single- and double- printed BST thick-films were fabricated and co-sintered inside a four layer LTCC module. Microstructural and chemical investigations showed a sufficient compatibility and adhesion between the silver, BST composite and LTCC layers and a resulting morphology depending on the processing route. The microwave characterization of the LTCC-embedded phase shifters revealed comparable results to phase shifters with the same design on alumina substrates. KW - Thick films KW - Dielectric materials KW - Electroceramics PY - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/ijac.12687 SN - 1546-542X SN - 1744-7402 VL - 14 IS - 4 SP - 574 EP - 582 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken, NY, USA AN - OPUS4-41086 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -