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A multilayer dual-band coupler based on composite right/left-handed folded

substrate integrated waveguide

Conference Paper · May 2012

DOI: 10.1109/ICMMT.2012.6230222

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A Multilayer Dual-band Coupler Based on Composite
Right/Left-Handed Folded Substrate Integrated
Waveguide
Li-Zheng Zhang 1, Liang Zhou 1, Wei Jiang 1, Wen-Yan Yin 2, 1, Jun-Fa Mao 1, and Hong-Li Peng 1
1
Center for Microwave and RF Technologies, School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University, Shanghai 200240, China
20-lizheng-08@163.com, liangzhou@sjtu.edu.cn, jiangwei8255@sjtu.edu.cn, and jfmao@sjtu.edu.cn
2
Center for Optical and Electromagnetic Research, State Key Lab of MOI, Zhejiang University 310058, China
wyyin@zju.edu.cn and wyyin@sjtu.edu.cn

Abstract — A multilayer dual-band coupler, based on the

composite right/left-handed (CRLH) folded substrate integrated
waveguide (FSIW) transmission line (TL), is proposed and
investigated. The characterization of the CRLH FSIW and the
coupling method are performed to realize a 3 dB coupler with
compact size. For verification, a dual-band coupler operating at
2.4 GHz/3.8 GHz is designed, fabricated and measured. The
simulated and measured results are shown reasonable
agreements.
(a) 3-D view
Index Terms — Composite right/left-handed (CRLH), coupler,
dual-band, folded substrate integrated waveguide (FSIW),
interdigital slot, multilayer.
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, substrate integrated waveguide (SIW)
structure, which has the advantages of low cost, low profile,
high Q, and good compatibility with planar structures, etc.,
has been extensively investigated and successfully applied to
the design of various kinds of microwave and millimeter-wave (b) Top view
Fig. 1. Configuration of the CRLH FSIW unit-cell structure: (a) 3-D view, (b)
circuits and systems [1-3]. However, sometimes its size may Top view.
be still large for practical circuits and affect the integration.
For this reason, an improved waveguide structure, folded SIW
(FSIW) has been introduced and its characteristics have been II. CHARACTERIZATION OF CRLH FSIW
studied [4]. The CRLH FSIW unit-cell structure, as shown in Fig. 1, is
Dual-band couplers have recently been paid more interests implemented by etching eight interdigital slots on the middle
in many communication systems. Most of them are metal layer of the FSIW, which will introduce large series
implemented on planar microstrip circuits by virtue of open or capacitance, and the via-walls generate shunt inductance.
short stubs and the composite right/left-handed (CRLH) Together with the parasitic effect of waveguide transmission
structure [5-6]; few designs have been implemented on SIW line, the CRLH FSIW structure can be modeled by equivalent
structure [7-8]. In [8], CRLH structure has been introduced in circuit as Fig. 2 (a) [9]. The series capacitor CL and shunt
SIW by etching interdigital slots on the top metal layer of the inductance LL contribute to the left-handed (LH) region, when
waveguide. However, this structure has strong radiation CL is increased, the LH region will move to a lower band. The
resulting more losses for 3 dB coupler. Therefore, they are shunt capacitor CR and the series inductance LR contribute to
preferred for designing antenna applications [9]. the right-handed (RH) region, which is mainly determined by
In this paper, we propose a compact CRLH FSIW to the width of FSIW. Moreover, the taper lines are modeled by
achieve a dual-band 3 dB coupler, hence the radiation could Ct and Lt. To achieve multi-band coupler, the unbalance case
be effectively restricted. The coupler operating at 2.4 GHz/3.8 LR u CL z LL u CR needs to be obtained [6].
GHz was fabricated and measured. The simulated and Fig. 2 (b) presents the S-parameters relation between the
measured results are shown reasonable agreements. CRLH FSIW unit-cell and the equivalent circuit. The

978-1-4673-2185-3/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE

simulated S-parameters of the CRLH FSIW are obtained by
using Ansoft’s High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS).
The elements of the equivalent circuit are extracted by fitting
the simulated data via Agilent’s Advanced Design System
(ADS). The parameter values of the unit-cell and the circuit
are listed in the caption. It can be seen that the two curves are
fitting to each other very well.
Fig. 3 shows frequency is dependent of the CRLH FSIW
(a) (b)
dimension. It is found that the first passband is mainly
determined by the interdigital slots, such as the width w3, the
distance w4 and the length l3, the second passband is mainly
determined by the width ws of FSIW. When w3 increases, the
first center frequency (f1) will increase significantly and the
second center frequency (f2) will decrease smoothly, as shown
in Fig. 3(a). However, Fig. 3(b) shows that the two
frequencies vary little with changing w4. And we can see f1
and f2 will both decrease as l3 increases from Fig. 3(c).
(c) (d)
Furthermore, as Fig. 3(d) shows, ws plays an important role on
Fig. 3. The influence of (a) the slot width w3, (b) the distance w4 between two
both frequencies, and its value can be firstly determined by f2, slots, (c) the slot length l3, (d) the FSIW width ws, on the two passbands of
and then we can adjust the values of w3, w4 and l3 to obtain the CRLH FSIW.
desired frequency f1.
50 Ω through a pair of special transitions. Between the CPW
III. DESIGN OF CRLH FSIW COUPLER
feed-lines for inputs and outputs, two arrays of vias are
The proposed CRLH FSIW coupler is shown in Fig. 4. It introduced to minimize the radiation loss.
consists of two stacked CRLH FSIWs, and in their common To obtain coupling ratio, the transverse slots are used. The
broad-wall nine transverse slots are used for coupling. The electric polarizability [αe] and magnetic polarizability [αm] are
structure is symmetry and each CRLH FSIW has three unit- [10]:
cells in period. The number of interdigital slots in unit-cell is
S w2l (1)
eight. The signal lines of FSIW are designed to connect [D e ] yy
conductor-backed coplanar waveguide (CPW) feed-lines of 12

S w2l
[D m ]  0.233wl 2
 0.044l 3  xx 
16
zz (2)

where w is the width and l is the length of the slot. y is the unit
vector normal to the slot plane, x and z are the unit vectors
along the length and width of the slot, respectively.
(a) The coupling can be computed as [11-12]:
N
C 20 log | ¦ Fn | dB (3)
n 1

(b)
Fig. 2. (a) Equivalent circuit for the CRLH FSIW unit-cell; (b) S-parameters
relation between CRLH FSIW and its equivalent circuit, the parameters
values are: w3 = 0.12 mm, w4 = 0.7 mm, l3 = 6 mm, ws = 10 mm, p3 = 18 mm,
g = 1 mm, d = 1 mm, p = 2 mm, wt = 2.2 mm, lt = 9 mm. LR = 2.64 nH, CR =
4.453 pF, LL = 0.28 nH, CL = 0.953 pF, Ct = 1.115 pF, Lt = 1.41e-8 nH.
Z § P0D m ·
| Fn | ¨ H 0H rD e  ¸ (4)
P10 © Z10 2 ¹
where Fn is the coupling coefficient of the nth slot with the
number of N. Z10 is the wave impedance and P10 =2×wsh/Z10 is
the power normalization constant. ω is the operating
frequency and εr is the relative permittivity of the substrate.
From (1), (2), (3) and (4), the relationship of the coupling
ratio versus the slot length and the number of slots can be
obtained as shown in Fig. 5. For 3 dB coupling ratio, the
initial slot length is set to be 7.6 mm and the number of slots is
9. The slot width and distance are then optimized with the
dimensions of the CRLH FSIW. We have found that the slot
width and distance have little effect on Fn.
 IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
A dual-band coupler operating at 2.4 GHz/3.8 GHz is
fabricated and measured for verification. The substrate is
Rogers RO4350B with εr = 3.48, thickness h = 0.762 mm. All
the metallic vias have a diameter d = 1 mm and a center to
center spacing p = 2 mm. The photograph of the fabricated
coupler is shown in Fig. 6 with the design parameters list
below. The dimension is 100 mm × 25 mm × 3.9 mm.
Fig. 7 presents the frequency responses of the simulation
and measurement results. The performances in both passbands
are summarized in Table I. Reasonable agreements are
obtained. The first center frequency is located at 2.40 GHz
(a) 3-D view with a fractional bandwidth about 6.67% and the measured
insertion loss of the through and coupling ports is 4.06 dB and
4.24 dB, respectively. Both the return loss and isolation are
better than 17 dB.
The second center frequency is located at 3.67 GHz with a
fractional bandwidth about 2.99% and the measured result
(b) Top view shows that insert loss is 4.57 dB and the coupling ratio is 4.71
Fig. 4. Configuration of the proposed CRLH FSIW coupler, (a) 3-D view, (b) dB, the return loss and isolation are less than -14 dB. However,
top view. a shift about 100 MHz is observed, it is probably due to the
inaccuracy in the PCB manufacturing process.

(a) Top view

Fig. 5. The relationship of the coupling ratio versus the slot length and the (b) Bottom view
number of slots. The operating frequency is at 3.8 GHz with ws = 12 mm, w = Fig. 6. Photograph of the fabricated dual-band coupler, (a) the top view, (b)
1.4 mm, slot = 5.9 mm. the bottom view. The parameter values are: w3 = 0.26 mm, w4 = 0.65 mm, l3 =
5.8 mm, ws = 12 mm, g = 1 mm, p3 = 16.5 mm, l = 9.6 mm, w = 1.4 mm, slot =
5.9 mm, wt = 2 mm, lt = 13 mm, wm = 0.84 mm, rm = 2 mm, lstrip = 3 mm,
The design procedures of the dual-band CRLH FSIW wpad = 1.5 mm, wcpw = 1.78 mm, scpw = 0.35 mm.
coupler can be summarized as follows.
1) Choose the center frequencies (f1 and f2) of two
passbands.
2) Parameters ws and g are selected with the
predetermined dielectric of the standard PCB
technology. The value of ws should be determined
according to the second center frequency.
3) With desired first center frequency and Fig. 3, we can
select the initial values of w3, w4 and l3, and Change
them to adjust the first center frequency with little
impact on the second one.
4) Using (1), (2), (3) and (4) or Fig. 5 to obtain the values
of w, l and slot for arbitrary coupling ratio.
5) Finally, the coupler structure is further optimized to
meet the specifications using commercial software (a) First passband of simulation.
HFSS.
 TABLE I
PERFORMANCE OF THE TWO PASSBANDS
Simulation Measurement
The first passband 2.43 GHz 2.40GHz
Return loss (S11) 19.23 dB 21.39 dB
Through (S21) 4.14 dB 4.06 dB
Isolation (S31) 17.86 dB 17.83 dB
Coupling (S41) 4.16 dB 4.24 dB
BW±0.5dB 4.12% 6.67%

The second passband 3.77 GHz 3.67GHz

Return loss (S11) 24.05 dB 18.45 dB
Through (S21) 3.77 dB 4.57 dB
(b) Second passband of simulation. Isolation (S31) 20.15 dB 14.44 dB
Coupling (S41) 3.97 dB 4.71 dB
BW±0.5dB 5.04% 2.99%

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by the National Basic Research
Program of China under Grant 2009CB320206, National
Natural Science Foundation of China 60901024.

(c) First passband of measurement.
(d) Second passband of measurement.
Fig. 7. Measured and simulated responses of the dual-band coupler, (a) the
first passband S-parameters of simulation, (b) the second passband S-
parameter of simulation, (c) the first passband S-parameters of measurement,
(d) the second passband S-parameter of measurement.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a compact 3 dB multilayer dual-band 2.4
GHz/3.8 GHz coupler based on CRLH FSIW is proposed. The
dual-band properties are implemented by the interdigital slot
creating the unbalance case. Moreover, the closed-form
equations are derived for the coupling ratio. The simulated and
measured results are shown reasonable agreements.
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