Additively-Manufactured All-Dielectric Microwave Polarization Converters Using Ceramic Stereolithography

• Published in: IEEE Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation Vol. 4; pp. 339 - 348
• Main Authors: Young, Steve M., Kauf, Mark, Kutsch, Jeffrey, Grbic, Anthony
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2023
• Subjects: Antennas; birefringence; Broadband communication; Ceramics; dielectric devices; Gratings; Matrix converters; metamaterials; metasurfaces; microwave devices; nonhomogeneous media; Permittivity; polarization; Slabs; Stereolithography; three-dimensional printing
• ISSN: 2637-6431; 2637-6431
• DOI: 10.1109/OJAP.2023.3257355

We report a class of all-dielectric, additively-manufactured polarization converters with tailored temporal frequency responses within the Ku and Ka microwave bands (15- 40 GHz). These multi-layer devices consist of cascaded, subwavelength, high-contrast gratings with different fill fractions and orientations, providing control over the effective anisotropic properties of each layer. In design, the subwavelength gratings are modeled as homogeneous anisotropic layers. This allows the overall metastructure to be treated as a stratified dielectric medium. Therefore, it can be analyzed and optimized using plane-wave transfer matrix techniques that fully account for multiple reflections between layers. Using this cascaded grating geometry, a variety of high-efficiency microwave polarization converters can be realized with broadband, multiband, or multifunctional behavior. The transmissive metastructures do not require anti-reflection layers since impedance matching is incorporated into their design. Three example devices based on alumina/air gratings have been monolithically fabricated using ceramic stereolithography: a broadband reflective half-wave plate, a broadband isotropic polarization rotator, and a dual-band linear-to-circular polarization converter.