Millimeter Wave Photonic Tightly Coupled Array

We present a tightly coupled array antenna excited by high-power photodiodes for millimeter wave transmit operation. The design includes thinned photodiode substrates improved bandwidth performance at high frequency combined with the inherently lightweight, low-loss, and direct feeding architecture afforded photonic approach. Circuit full simulations are conducted compared against traditional electronic arrays in literature. A prototype 1 × 3 is developed characterized to validate which achieves dB (VSWR <; 1.4) radiated power of 4.6:1 across 13-60 GHz maintains near 4:1 scan angles up 30°. fabricated exhibits 1.8:1 30-55 maximum measured effective isotropic 19.4 dBm 40 GHz.