Design and characterization of a 45 GHz Yagi-Uda antenna receiver fabricated on GaAs micromachined membrane

This paper presents for the first time the design, fabrication and characterization of a GaAs membrane supported millimeter wave receiver that monolithically integrates a Yagi-Uda antenna with a Schottky diode. The design approach includes intensive electromagnetic simulation and modeling. The fabrication processes is based on GaAs micromachining and the Schottky diode is monolithically integrated with the Yagi-Uda antenna on the same 2.2 mum thin semi-insulating GaAs membrane. The experimental results demonstrate an isotropic voltage sensitivity of 6000 mV/mW at 45 GHz. The agreement between the experimental and simulated results is excelent.