A semiconductor based millimeter-wave waveguide junction circulator
- Resource Type
- Conference
- Authors
- Jawad, Ghassan Nihad; Duff, Christopher; Sloan, Robin
- Source
- 2017 47th European Microwave Conference (EuMC) European Microwave Conference (EuMC), 2017 47th. :184-187 Oct, 2017
- Subject
- Aerospace
Communication, Networking and Broadcast Technologies
Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Fields, Waves and Electromagnetics
Power, Energy and Industry Applications
Signal Processing and Analysis
Transportation
Circulators
Magnetic tunneling
Waveguide junctions
Magnetic semiconductors
Electromagnetic waveguides
Ferrites
- Language
This paper presents, for the first time, a millimeter-wave semiconductor based waveguide junction circulator. Circulation is achieved by exploiting the counter-rotating modes excited in an axially magnetized semiconductor rod. Theoretical analysis is carried out by considering an infinitely-long semiconductor rod magnetized along its axis. A split between the clockwise and counter-clockwise rotating modes is observed and exploited to design a circulator by placing a piece of the semiconductor rod in a three port waveguide junction. The circulator is realised using an Indium Antimoinde (InSb) rod at 77 K placed in a WR-28 waveguide junction and magnetically biased with 0.5 T. Measurements show isolation of more than 15 dB and about 2.5 dB of insertion loss at 38 GHz. Results reported in this paper indicate a potential of realising a new class of circulators that can work up to the THz frequency range, which is not possible using the classical ferrite circulators.