Title :
Monolithic optically variable capacitors for tunable microwave antennas
Author :
Nagra, Amit S. ; Chavarkar, Prashant ; Swann, Catherine J. ; Larry, Thomas ; VanBlaricum, Michael L. ; Mishra, Umesh K. ; York, Robert A.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., California Univ., Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Abstract :
Optical fiber links are low loss, light weight, compact, immune against EMI and do not interfere with the radiation patterns of antennas. This makes them attractive for the control of microwave circuits and antenna arrays. In this paper we report a monolithic implementation of an Optically Variable Capacitor. This consists of a photovoltaic array that generates a light dependent reverse bias voltage across a varactor diode. The fabrication of miniature photovoltaic arrays poses some interesting challenges which are addressed in this paper. The DC characteristics of the photovoltaic arrays and RF measurements on the entire Optically Variable Capacitor are presented
Keywords :
antenna radiation patterns; frequency agility; integrated optoelectronics; microwave antenna arrays; optical fibres; varactors; DC characteristics; EMI; RF measurements; antenna arrays; light dependent reverse bias voltage; optical fiber links; optically variable capacitors; photovoltaic array; radiation patterns; tunable microwave antennas; varactor diode; Varactor tuners;
Conference_Titel :
High Speed Semiconductor Devices and Circuits, 1997. Proceedings., 1997 IEEE/Cornell Conference on Advanced Concepts in
Conference_Location :
Ithaca, NY
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-3970-3
DOI :
10.1109/CORNEL.1997.649344
