Development of Voltage Tunable, HTS/Ferroelectric Phase Shifters for Phased Array Antenna Applications

In this Phase I project we will investigate the use of high temperature superconductor (HTS) and ferroelectric materials to construct a voltage tunable phase shifter for use in phased array antenna systems. The primary goals of this proposal are to design and demonstrate a continuously tunable phase shifter with built-in dc bias and to determine the feasibility of using it in a phased array antenna system. SCT and TRW have teamed to design, fabricate and test a prototype HTS/ferroelectric phase shifter. We will then use the results of this demonstration and an antenna systems study to design a relatively simple four element phased array antenna which uses this phase shifter technology and determine the feasibility of producing the antenna. This antenna will be developed in Phase II of this project. The federal government, and in particular the Department of Defense, along with the private sector communications industry, use phased array antenna technology for many applications. These users will benefit from the development of a less complex, and therefore lower cost, technology for high performance phased array antenna systems that provides orders of magnitude performance improvement due to the use of extremely lom loss superconducting materials.