Micromachined thick-metal TSAs for high-permittivity substrates

We introduce a new endfire structure that allows monolithic fabrication of endfire tapered slotline antennas (TSA) that extend off of the edge of a high-permittivity semiconductor substrate. A linear TSA (LTSA) and Vivaldi-like (exponentially tapered) TSA are fabricated for 94 GHz operation and radiation patterns are obtained at both 94 GHz and 184 GHz. These TSAs are constructed of a rigid conductor metal that is patterned using deep X-ray lithography techniques. The conductors are electroplated up to a self-supporting thickness so that the underlying dielectric substrate may be etched away in a subsequent processing step. The result is an antenna that is more robust than membrane-based antennas, requires no substrate lens, and produces plane cut-symmetric endfire radiation.