Integrated Micromachined Waveguide Absorbers at 220 – 325 GHz

This paper presents the characterization of integrated micromachined waveguide absorbers in the frequency band of 220 to 325 GHz. Tapered absorber wedges were cut out of four different commercially available semi-rigid absorber materials and inserted in a backshorted micromachined waveguide cavity for characterization. The absorption properties of these materials are only specified at 10 GHz, and their absorption behavior above 100 GHz was so far unknown. To study the effect of the geometry of the absorber wedges, the return loss of different absorber lengths and tapering angles was investigated. The results show that longer and sharper sloped wedges from the material specified with the lowest dielectric constant, but not the highest specified absorption, are superior over other geometries and absorber materials. The best results were achieved for 5 mm long absorbers with a tapering angle of 23◦ in the material RS-4200 from the supplier Resin Systems, having a return loss of better than 13 dB over the whole frequency range of 220 to 325 GHz. These absorber wedges are intended to be used as matched loads in micromachined waveguide circuits. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first publication characterizing such micromachined waveguide absorbers.