On the coupling characteristics of coplanar waveguides and microstrip lines to multilayer dielectric media

The spectral-domain technique is utilized to optimize the coupling of coplanar waveguides and microstrip lines to lossy dielectric media. It is shown that to enhance the coupling, higher frequencies should be used, the dielectric constant of the substrate should be small (∈=2.56), and the width of the center conductor and gaps should be as large as possible. The dielectric constant of the superstrate should be low if a leaky-wave type of coupling is desired or large if a strong coupling by the transverse-field components is desired. It is shown that the quasi-static TEM and TM₀ modes will be excited if a superstrate is present between a high dielectric lossy media and the coplanar waveguide