Experimental Investigation of a Photogenerated Silicon Plasma Monopole Antenna

• Published in: IEEE transactions on antennas and propagation Vol. 70; no. 12; pp. 11353 - 11360
• Main Authors: Jones, Thomas R., Fisher, Alden, Peroulis, Dimitrios
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.12.2022; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Antenna arrays; Antenna feeds; Antenna radiation patterns; Antennas; Circuit boards; Conductors; Copper; Light sources; Monopole antenna; Monopole antennas; Monopoles; Optical fibers; photoconductive plasma antenna; photogenerated solid-state plasma; Plasma; plasma antenna; Plasma antennas; Plasmas; Printed circuits; Silicon; Silicon substrates; Substrates
• ISSN: 0018-926X; 1558-2221
• DOI: 10.1109/TAP.2022.3209269

This work investigates the photoconductive effect in high-resistivity silicon (HRS) as the radiating element of a plasma monopole antenna. A silicon chiplet forming the monopole is mounted on top of an antenna feed network patterned on a printed circuit board (PCB) substrate. By exciting the silicon chiplet with a light source supplied by optical fibers, the monopole can be changed from a dielectric to a conductor, thus making the antenna indistinguishable from typical substrates in the OFF-state and radiating in its ON-state. The experimental results show a peak broadside realized gain of −2.6 dBi at 16.9 GHz and an ON/OFF ratio greater than 17.8 dB from 14.2 to 20 GHz. The silicon plasma antenna is also shown to radiate between 43% and 62% of the broadside power in comparison to a fully copper monopole antenna with equivalent dimensions. The proposed photogenerated silicon plasma monopole antenna demonstrates significant potential as an antenna element for integration within a plasma antenna array system.