92 GHZ DUAL-POLARIZED INTEGRATED HORN ANTENNAS

A dual-polarized two-dimensional imaging array has been designed for millimeter-wave applications. The dual-polarized design consists of two dipoles perpendicular to each other and suspended on the same membrane inside a pyramidal cavity etched in silicon. The dual-polarized antenna is fully monolithic with plenty of room available for processing electronics. The IF or video signals are taken out through a novel bias feeding structure. The measured polarization isolation is better than 20 dB at 92 GHz, and the orthogonal channels show identical far-field patterns. The antenna is well suited for millimeter-wave polarimetric synthetic-aperture radars and high-efficiency balanced-mixer receivers. Additional application areas are dual-polarized antennas for plasma-diagnostics experiments and radio-astronomical measurements.