H-band Quartz-Silicon Leaky-Wave Lens with Air-Bridge Interconnect to GaAs Front-End

Thanks to the large bandwidth availability, millimeter and submillimeter wave systems are getting more attractive to be used in a wide range of applications, such as high-resolution radar or high-speed communications. In this contribution, a new lens antenna in-package solution is presented for the H-band (220–320 GHz), including a wideband quartz-cavity leaky-wave feed combined with an air-bridge chip interconnect technology, based on spray coating and laser lithography. This interconnection acts as a wideband, low-loss transition between the GaAs front-end and the quartz antenna, avoiding the use of expensive waveguide split-blocks. An antenna prototype including the interconnect has been manufactured and characterized, validating the full-wave simulated results for the integrated H-band leaky-wave with aperture efficiency higher than 74% over 34% bandwidth, and radiation efficiency higher than 70% over 37% of bandwidth.