Materials Integration and Processing of Nonlinear Tunable Thin Films with Affordable Large Area Substrates to Promote Microwave Frequency (Ka band) Wa

Agile has successfully demonstrated the ability to design and manufacture high performance, voltage controllable analog millimeter wave phase shifters for use in phased array antennas using the ferroelectric material, Barium Strontium Titanate (BST) in thin film form. Agile has also performed pioneering work in the design and manufacture of phased array monolithic antennas manufactured on a single substrate. This work was performed for a commercial application, automotive anti-collision radar conformally mounted on the bumpers, but is ideally suited for the manufacture of cost-effective and scalable conformal antennas. Agile is proposing to develop a Ka band 2-D electronically scanned antennas on a single wafer containing the phase shifters, feed network and antenna radiating elements utilizing our BST technology and industry standard semiconductor manufacturing techniques. Our current substrate is 4" in diameter and less than 500 microns thick. These integrated antennas can be manufactured at a low cost. The Phase I proposal will focus on extending our work from the automotive radar effort and performing high fidelity EM simulations and produce a mask design for a 2-D monolithic scanning antenna. Phase II will involve the actual manufacture of the antenna designed in Phase I.