A Conformal Mapping-Based Broadband Method to Extract Propagation Properties of Dielectrics Using Coplanar Waveguides With Air Pockets

In recent years, advances in material science for high-frequency electronics have generated novel materials that offer superior performance. Additive manufacturing (AM) has expanded the frontiers of microwave material manufacturing going beyond flat geometries and unique properties such as graded permittivity materials. Accurate electromagnetic (EM) material characterization for AM materials remains challenging given the printing volume constraints for manufacturing processes, as traditional EM property extraction techniques often require electrically large samples. Furthermore, loss extraction techniques typically cannot differentiate dielectric and conductor losses in waveguides. This paper presents a novel conformal mapping-based characterization technique using coplanar waveguides (CPW) with air pockets that allows for dielectric permittivity and dielectric loss extraction. The underlying principle of the techniques is to use a set of CPWs with different air slot depths to extract the loss behavior as a function of the slot depth. A new loss-slot rate metric is introduced to decouple the dielectric and conductor losses in the structure. The theoretical foundation of the technique is used to develop a physical-mathematical model for dielectric property extraction that is verified with simulations and experiments for materials with permittivity in the range 2.33–29, and loss tangents of 0.02–0.055. The average error for the equivalent capacitance of the CPW with air pockets (CPW-AP) between the presented model and simulated or measured data is 2.4% for all the studied cases. The experimental confirmation is performed with traditionally manufactured FR-4 and additively manufactured yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) dielectrics up to 10 GHz.