Design and Fabrication of a C-Band Dielectric Resonator Antenna with Novel Temperature-Stable Ce(Nb1- xVx)NbO4 (x = 0-0.4) Microwave Ceramics

Fang-Fang Wu; Di Zhou; Chao Du; Diming Xu; Rui-Tao Li; Ling Zhang; Feng Qiao; Zhong-Qi Shi; Moustafa Adel Darwish; Tao Zhou; Heli Jantunen; Ian M Reaney

doi:10.1021/acsami.2c14627

Design and Fabrication of a C-Band Dielectric Resonator Antenna with Novel Temperature-Stable Ce(Nb_{1- x}V_x)NbO₄ (x = 0-0.4) Microwave Ceramics

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2022 Nov 2;14(43):48897-48906. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c14627. Epub 2022 Oct 21.

Authors

Fang-Fang Wu^{1

2}, Di Zhou¹, Chao Du¹, Diming Xu¹, Rui-Tao Li¹, Ling Zhang¹, Feng Qiao¹, Zhong-Qi Shi³, Moustafa Adel Darwish⁴, Tao Zhou⁵, Heli Jantunen², Ian M Reaney⁶

Affiliations

¹ Electronic Materials Research Laboratory, Key Laboratory of Multifunctional Materials and Structures, Ministry of Education, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi710049, People's Republic of China.
² Microelectronics Research Unit, University of Oulu, Post Office Box 4500, FI-90014Oulu, Finland.
³ State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behaviour of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi710049, People's Republic of China.
⁴ Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Tanta University, Al-Geish Street, Tanta31527, Egypt.
⁵ School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang310018, People's Republic of China.
⁶ Functional Materials and Devices Laboratory, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Sheffield, SheffieldS1 3JD, United Kingdom.

PMID: 36268902
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c14627

Abstract

Vanadium(V)-substituted cerium niobate [Ce(Nb_1-xV_x)O₄, CNVx] ceramics were prepared to explore their structure-microwave (MW) property relations and application in C-band dielectric resonator antennas (DRAs). X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy revealed that CNVx (0.0 ≤ x ≤ 0.4) ceramics exhibited a ferroelastic phase transition at a critical content of V (x_c = 0.3) from a monoclinic fergusonite structure to a tetragonal scheelite structure (T_F-S), which decreased in temperature as a function of x according to thermal expansion analysis. Optimum microwave dielectric performance was obtained for CNV0.3 with permittivity (ε_r) of ∼16.81, microwave quality factor (Qf) of ∼41 300 GHz (at ∼8.7 GHz), and temperature coefficient of the resonant frequency (TCF) of ∼ -3.5 ppm/°C. ε_r is dominated by Ce-O phonon absorption in the microwave band; Qf is mainly determined by the porosity, grain size, and proximity of T_F-S; and TCF is controlled by the structural distortions associated with T_F-S. Terahertz (THz) (0.20-2.00 THz, ε_r ∼ 12.52 ± 0.70, and tan δ ∼ 0.39 ± 0.17) and infrared measurements are consistent, demonstrating that CNVx (0.0 ≤ x ≤ 0.4) ceramics are effective in the sub-millimeter as well as MW regime. A cylindrical DRA prototype antenna fabricated from CNV0.3 resonated at 7.02 GHz (|S₁₁| = -28.8 dB), matching simulations, with >90% radiation efficiency and 3.34-5.93 dB gain.

Keywords: C-band dielectric resonator antenna; CeNbO4; microwave dielectric ceramics; phase transition; thermally stable.