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3 dB Branch-Line Coupler with Improved Bandwidth Using PDMS and Zoflex

Conductor

Article  in  Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience · November 2017

DOI: 10.1166/asl.2017.10287

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RESEARCH ARTICLE Sci. Lett. 23, 11378–11381, 2017

Copyright © 2017 American Scientific Publishers Advanced Science Letters

All rights reserved Vol. 23, 11378–11381, 2017
Printed in the United States of America

3dB Branch-Line Coupler with Improved

Bandwidth Using PDMS and Zoflex Conductor
S. A. Babale1,2*, S. K. A. Rahim1, IEEE, K. N. Paracha1 and S. I. Orakwue1

1 Wireless Communication Centre (WCC) Faculty of Electrical Engineering,

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, UTM Skudai, 81310, Johor, Malaysia.
2 Department of Electrical Engineering, Bayero University, Kano - Nigeria.

Abstract-
Single section branch line coupler is popular because of its simplicity in design and fabrication. But it suffered from narrow
bandwidth and poor out of band rejection characteristics. This paper overcomes these limitations by designing and simulating
a Broadband 900 hybrid coupler implementable in planar microstrip circuit. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and a modified
Zoflex Conductor (ZC) were used as the substrate and the conductor respectively. Copper particles obtained using Engraving
machine was used to improve the conductivity of the ZC. The coupler is meant to operate at 6GHz. It shows a return loss and
isolation better than 18dB within the frequency range of 3.64GHZ to 7.64GHz. The results exhibited a very low insertion loss
better than 4dB, from 3.64GHZ to 7.64GHz and a small phase variation better than 900±50 within the passband of 3.86GHz to
7.34GHz. A fractional bandwidth of 52.33% was achieved which is more than five times wider than that of conventional single
section coupler.
Keywords- Broadband 900 hybrid coupler, polydimethylsiloxane, Zoflex Conductor, fractional bandwidth, insertion loss, and
Isolation.

1. INTRODUCTION

With high demand for data rate and the recently proposed
5G technology blueprint which encouraged wireless
connection between machine to machine of different types
and shapes, the technology around us will keep on being
progressing rapidly. There is a very high anticipation in
terms of system’s efficiency and quality of the service from
the communication equipment. Antenna and microwave
devices carries a lot of importance. The Conventional
components have their limitations especially in biomedical
application or hostile military environments [1]. Flexible
and stretchable electronics have attracted huge interest in
these fields because of their numerous applications. This
technology bonds various electronic components into a
well-matched polymer substrate that may be stretchable
*
Email Address: sababale.ele@buk.edu.ng
11378 Adv. Sci. Lett. Vol. 23, No. 11, 2017
and conformal to complex shapes depending on the
application [2].
Due to the high demand for flexible electronics
circuits, it has been forecasted that it will dominate the
world of electronic gadgets due the recently proposed 5G
technology blueprint which encouraged wireless
connection between machine to machine of different types
and shapes. Flexible circuits are reliable alternative to
conventional electronic products and as such, the design of
a planar antenna on a flexible substrate might supersede
that of a rigid substrate for more flexible applications on
wireless system integration, such as Bluetooth link, RFID
and in applications where beam steering is required [3].
Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) based circuits are
widely used in the field of wearable antenna for biomedical
application and electrical fields where flexibility is
required. However, its conductive part suffered from a
1936-6612/2017/11/11378/004 doi: 10.1166/asl.2017.10287
Adv. Sci. Lett. 23, 11378–11381, 2017 RESEARCH ARTICLE

well-known problem of micro-cracks appearing on the [11]:

sputtered metal layer on top of the PDMS substrate.
Wherever crack exist, the connection of the metal patterns 1 2
�(1 + 𝑉𝑉)𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐 2 (∆) − �1 + � 𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠2 (∆)� 𝑌𝑌01
will not be stable and it makes it difficult to achieve a 𝑉𝑉
precise functionality [4]. PDMS elastomers are 1 1 + 𝐶𝐶
+� �� � 𝑌𝑌
inexpensive with highly elastic properties whose 𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐 2 (∆) 1 − 𝐶𝐶 01 ……...... (1)
permittivity can be easily altered by ceramic loading and
the curing process allows antenna/RF components self- − [(1 + 𝑉𝑉)𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐 2 (∆)
adhesion. The PDMS substrate also prevents tag
− (1 + 𝑉𝑉)𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠2 (∆)] = 0
mismatching when placed upon the skin [5]. However,
unlike cupper sheet which cracks after some number of
cyclic bending, Zoflex Conductor being flexible and ⎡ ⎤
𝐶𝐶 cos(∆)
stretchable can be a suitable conductive pattern on PDMS 𝑌𝑌𝑂𝑂𝑂𝑂 ⎢ ⎥
2
1 − 𝐶𝐶 ⎢ 2 2
(1 + 𝑉𝑉) 𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠 (2∆)⎥
substrate. (𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠2(∆) − 𝑉𝑉𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐𝑐 2 (∆))2 + 2
⎣ 4𝑌𝑌01 ⎦
On the other hand, Branch-Line Couplers (BLC) is
widely used in numerous Radio Frequency (RF) circuits, .......……. (2)
such as in power dividers, dividers combiners, modulators,
demodulators, balanced amplifiers, balanced mixers,
matched attenuators, filters, and so on. They are also use to The refection coefficient at center frequency is given
feed networks in antenna arrays. Conventional hybrid as:
coupler utilizes λ/4 transmission lengths and provides
1 1
narrow bandwidths of 10-20% [6]. This is one of its major ( − 1)(𝑌𝑌 2 − 2 )
𝛤𝛤(𝑓𝑓0 ) = � 𝐶𝐶 2 𝑌𝑌 � ……....... (3)
limitations. To overcome this limitation, a simple 1 1
4 + ( 2 − 1)(𝑌𝑌 + )2
technique of cascading more sections had been suggested 𝐶𝐶 𝑌𝑌
[7-9].
In this paper, a Multi-section wideband microstrip
(90 − ∆) (90 + ∆) ………... (4)
90∘ hybrid coupler with tight coupling is proposed using f1 = ; f2 =
PDMS with Zoflex Conductor. The Zoflex Conductor has 90 90
a very low conductivity of the order 10 to the power 5
(10e+4) S/m and therefore not suitable as a radiating Where Y01, Y02, and Y0H are admittances of the
element due to its poor conductivity. But, Copper particles first port, second port and the series arm of the branch-line
obtained using Engraving machine was used in this coupler and C is the coupling coefficient. By choosing ∆ to
research to improve the conductivity of the ZC to the order be190 as proposed in [10] and the impedance ratio V as
10 to the power of 5 (10e+5) S/m. The results obtained 0.646, Using equation (1) to (4), the following de-
after this modification exhibited a very high improvement normalized impedances were obtained: Zp1 = 55.19Ω and
in the bandwidth, low insertion loss, good return Zp2 = 85.42Ω. With these impedances, together with those
loss/isolation and a small phase and amplitude imbalance obtained for the initial design, the whole sets of design
within the operational bandwidth. parameters were obtained using LineCalc tool of Agilent
ADS 2015. Table 1.0 summarized the optimized design
parameters.
2. WIDEBAND HYBRID DESIGN

Figure 1 shows circuit configuration of the

proposed two-section microstrip line couplers. The initial
impedance relations of the vertical and the horizontal arms
of the lines for the three branch of the broadband hybrid
coupler were first extracted from [10]. The wideband
characteristic was obtained by connecting two external
network consisting of a quarter-wavelength transformer at
each of the four ports of the hybrid coupler. With this
matched condition at all the ports, if the signal (power) is
fed into port 1 of the coupler, it is equally divided between Figure 1: Layout for the proposed microstrip three Branch
the output ports (port 2 and 3) with 900 phase shift wideband BLC
between the them leaving the adjacent port completely
decoupled. When even and odd mode excitations are
applied to ports 1 and 2, the design equations obtained from
even- and odd mode circuits and by imposing some
conditions on each of the circuits the following emerged
11379
RESEARCH ARTICLE Sci. Lett. 23, 11378–11381, 2017

66.67% as shown in Figure 5. The simulated and measured

S- parameter phase imbalance for the proposed 3-branch
Table 1.0: Optimized Design Parameters for the Proposed 3- wideband BLC were shown in Figures 6 and 7. Table 2
Branch wideband BLC compares the characteristics of the proposed branch line
coupler, and those presented in [7], [8] and [9]. It is clearly
Parameter AL AW BL1 BW1 BL2
observed that all the bandwidths of the proposed coupler
Dimension (mm) 4.56 2.94 8.87 0.55 8.87 are substantially larger than those in comparison.
Parameter BW2 PL1 PW1 PL2 PW2
Dimension (mm) 1.45 7.79 1.75 7.51 1.62 S - Parameter Simulation Results for 3 Branch Coupler
0

-5

-10
3. RESULTS AND SIMULATION

S - Parameter
-15

The designed parameters were used to simulate -20

and fabricate the structure as shown in Figures 2 and 3. The -25

Simulation was carried out in CST Microwave Studio
2004® with PDMS of thickness 0.9mm, εr = 2.9 and a loss -30
S11 - Simulated
S21- Simulated
tangent of 0.02 as the substrate, a modified Zoflex -35 S31 - Simulated
S41 - Simulated
Conductor with measured conductivity of the order 10 to -40
the power 5 (10e+5) S/m and a thickness of 0.2-mm was 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Frequency (GHz)
used for the radiating pattern.
Figure 4: Simulated S- Parameter for the Proposed 3-Branch
wideband BLC

Phase Imbalance Simulation Results for 3 Branch Coupler

160

140
Phase Imbalance (Degree)

120

100

Figure 2: Geometry of the Proposed 3- Branch wideband BLC

80

60 Simulated<S12 - <S13

40
3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Frequency (GHz)
Figure 5: Simulated Phase Imbalance for the Proposed 3-
Branch wideband BLC

S - Parameter Simulation Results for 3 Branch Coupler

0

-5

Figure 3: Front view for the fabricated microstrip three Branch -10

wideband BLC
-15
S - Parameter

-20

Scattering parameter from the simulation over the -25 S11 - Simulated
frequency range of 3 to 9 GHz were extracted. Figure 4 S21
S31
- Simulated
- Simulated
-30
gives the simulated responses of the hybrids in which the S41 - Simulated
S11 - Measured
fractional band width was found to be from 4.02GHz to -35 S21 - Measured
7.17GHz which stands for about 52.33%. Furthermore, the -40
S31 - Measured
S41 - Measured
bandwidth for the phase difference between two quadrature 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

outputs of less than ±50 over the operating bandwidth was Frequency (GHz)

observed and found to be from 3.64GHz to 7.64GHz or Figure 6: Simulated and Measured S- Parameter for the
Proposed 3-Branch wideband BLC
11380 Adv. Sci. Lett. Vol. 23, No. 11, 2017 1936-6612/2017/11/11378/004 doi: 10.1166/asl.2017.10287
Adv. Sci. Lett. 23, 11378–11381, 2017 RESEARCH ARTICLE

is managed by Research Management Center, Universiti

Phase Imbalance Simulation Results for 3 Branch Coupler Teknologi Malaysia.
200

150
REFFERENCES
Phase Imbalance (Degree)

100

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The authors will like to acknowledge the effort of Ministry and justification for WRC Agenda Item for 5G bands above 6
GHz.” METIS-II Report R3.1, v1.0. 2015: 1-40
of Higher Education Malaysia (MOHE) for providing
financial support under a HiCoe Grant no 4J213. This grant

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