The current and rising number of applications in the millimeter wave frequency bands has facilitated the use of new materials, interconnect, and electromagnetic modal transitions for traditional heterodyne receiver front ends. In terms of materials, LCP has emerged as a highly suitable material for applications requiring near-hermetic packaging. LCP’s light weight, low cost, flexibility, and low fabrication tolerances make it a pragmatic choice for integrated systems. In addition, its electrical performance features low loss, and stability of material properties up to high frequencies (DC – 170 GHz), and over wide range of environmental conditions. The work in this research proposal presents millimeter wave heterodyne front ends with electromagnetic transitions for both satellite communications, and Tokamak plasma imaging applications.

In addition to presenting work in LCP, this work also introduces new diplexing structures for wideband, millimeter wave frequency extension applications of high sensitivity measurement instrumentation. The diplexing structures are incorporated into existing 1 mm coaxial-waveguide modal transitions, to achieve front-end instrumentation extension from 50 GHz up to 110 GHz. By combining both coaxial and waveguide filtering structures, low loss, good isolation, compactness, and high measurement system sensitivity can be achieved. Future work will focus on theoretical analysis, and optimization of the complex coaxial-waveguide diplexer junction problem, and offer novel insight into the operation and continued design of such devices for any front-end application.