Zhu, L; Shin, S-H; Payapulli, R; Rossuck, I W; Klein, N; Ridler, N M; Lucyszyn, S (2023) 3-D Printed THz Waveguide Components. IEEE Access, 11. pp. 79073-79086.

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Abstract

This paper presentsthe state-of-the-art in polymer-based 3-D printing of metal-pipe rectangular waveguides (MPRWGs) with the first reported terahertz filters, all operating within the WR-2.2 band (325 to 500 GHz): a 5 mm-long thru line, two 399 GHz single-cavity resonators and two 403 GHz bandpass filters (BPFs). Our thru line exhibits a measured average insertion loss of only 0.9 dB, with a worst-case return loss of 13.3 dB, across the band. The single-cavity resonators, without and with corner rounding compensation (CRC) are investigated with the use of an RLC equivalent circuit model. The uncompensated resonator exhibits a 2.3% frequency downshift and an increase of 10.8 GHz in its 3 dB bandwidth. The compensated resonator exhibits a 2.2% frequency upshift and an increase of only 2.2 GHz in its 3 dB bandwidth; clearly demonstrating that CRC helps to mitigate against increased coupling into the resonators, as a result of manufacturing limitations with low-cost 3-D printing. Finally, the 3 rd order Butterworth and Chebyshev MPRWG BPFs both have a measured passband insertion loss of only 1.0 dB. The Butterworth filter exhibits a 0.8% passband frequency upshift and worst-case return loss of 16.6 dB; while the Chebyshev filter exhibits a 1.2% passband frequency downshift and worst-case return loss of 10.4 dB. With our low-cost polymerbased 3-D printing technology, we have demonstrated measured performances that are better than those using metal-based 3-D printing in the WR-2.2 band and this may, in the not too distant future, challenge components manufactured using traditional machining technologies.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	Electromagnetics > RF and Microwave
Divisions:	Electromagnetic & Electrochemical Technologies
Identification number/DOI:	10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3297271
Last Modified:	15 Feb 2024 14:53
URI:	https://eprintspublications.npl.co.uk/id/eprint/9926