Millimeter-wave dielectric measurement of materials

It is no longer necessary to use extrapolated microwave dielectric values when designing millimeter-wave components and systems. Very recently, highly accurate millimeter-wave (5- to 1/2-mm) data on complex dielectric permittivity and loss tangent have become available to engineers for a variety of materials such as common ceramics, semiconductors, crystalline, and glass materials. One quasi-optical measurement method has proved to be most accurate and reproducible, namely, dispersive Fourier transform spectroscopy (DFTS) applied to a polarizing interferometer. The openresonator method and the Mach-Zehnder-IMPATT spectrometer will also be described and compared. The fact that the dielectric loss increases with frequency in the millimeter, unlike the microwave, is an important feature of these data. Reliable measurements also reveal that the methods of preparation of nominally identical specimens can change the dielectric losses by a factor of three.