Study of the characteristics of micro-sized millimeter-wave waveguides fabricated using laser microfabrication technology

Abstract

This work is devoted to the study of laser micromachining technology for rapid prototyping and fabrication of millimeter-wave waveguide structures. Laser micromachining is one of the promising technologies based on the laser ablation effect technologies that provide high precision and manufacturing quality.
In this work the «MicroSET RA» experimental setup with a pulsed ytterbium fiber laser was used. an analysis of laser processing regimes was carried out on copper plates 150 μm thick. A W band rectangular waveguide of standard cross section was designed as a stacked assembly of 15 copper plates. The waveguide was fabricated by laser cutting, ultrasonically cleaned, and assembled. Experimental characterization of high-frequency parameters with a vector network analyzer showed that the VSWR does not exceed 1.3, the return loss is at least 17 dB, and the attenuation is approximately 0.2 dB/mm.A waveguide bandpass filter based on a rectangular waveguide with inductive diaphragms was designed using 3D simulation for the 81 86 GHz band. The filter was fabricated from 15 copper plates. Morphological analysis revealed that the fabrication error of the posts forming the diaphragms is 3-5 %, the error in diaphragm spacing is 1.5-2 %, and the edge taper is 1-1.5°. Experimental measurements showed a broadening of the passband, a reflection coefficient in the range of -17…-35 dB, and an insertion loss of approximately 10-12 dB.
The effectiveness of the proposed laser micromachining approach for fabrication micro-scale waveguide components in the millimeter-wave band has been confirmed. High achievable accuracy and low fabrication errors have been demonstrated.
This work was supported by Russian Science Foundation (grant #22-12-00181)

Speaker

Veronika Churikova
Saratov State University
Russia

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