IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 14, NO.

5, MAY 2004 207

A Substrate Integrated Waveguide

Degree-2 Circulator
W. D’Orazio, Student Member, IEEE, K. Wu, Fellow, IEEE, and J. Helszajn, Fellow, IEEE

Abstract—A substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) circulator

is proposed and demonstrated in this work that can facilitate the
integration of planar active components with high-Q passive com-
ponents. Very satisfactory experimental and theoretical results are
provided, at 22 GHz, for a degree-2 junction circulator using a post
resonator. It also includes experimental results on the classic gy-
rator circuit of this type of junction.
Index Terms—Circulator, millimeter-wave integrated circuits,
substrate integrated waveguide (SIW).

I. INTRODUCTION

A NOVEL via-hole synthetic waveguide called substrate

integrated waveguide has recently been introduced [1]
to facilitate the integration of active planar components with
high-Q passive components. A typical geometry is illustrated
in Fig. 1(a). The substrate’s top and bottom ground planes
form the broad walls of the waveguide and a discrete metallic
via-hole array forms the narrow walls. The via array may be
viewed as nonradiating slots on the narrow wall of the wave-
guide. It is understood that the vias are capable of supporting
the vertically directed currents of a mode, and thus do
not radiate. This allows realizing waveguide components with
the same process as that used for the planar components.
A number of integrated components have been developed
including numerous transitions, filters, and oscillators [1]–[3].
However no microwave ferrite devices such as circulators and
isolators have been presented to date. The purpose of this paper
is to do so. The circulator arrangement illustrated in Fig. 1(b)
consists of a planar post resonator at the junction of three SIW
branches. A transition to microstrip, in the same substrate as the
SIW circulator, is included for the purpose of measurement.
II. GYROMAGNETIC RESONATOR
The post resonator at the junction of three rectangular waveg-
uides is a standard problem in the literature [10], [11]. The op-
eration of this class of circulators relies on two counter rotating
circularly polarized standing wave patterns that produce a mag-
netic wall at the terminals of the junction, akin to that of a
mode, and an in-phase one that places an electric wall
there, akin to that of a mode. The circulation frequency
Manuscript received September 22, 2003; revised February 16, 2004. This
work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
of Canada (NSERC). The review of this letter was arranged by Associate Editor
A. Weisshaar.
W. D’Orazio and K. Wu are with the Poly-Grames Research Center, École
Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal, QC H3C 3A7, Canada.
J. Helszajn is with the Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, U.K.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LMWC.2004.827867
1531-1309/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
Fig. 1. (a) SIW, (b) SIW degree-2 circulator.
is strictly speaking an eigenvalue problem, and is fully dealt with
in [4].
The radius of the ferrite resonator corresponding to a par-
ticular resonant frequency depends on the constituent param-
eters of the resonator, and the details of the SIW. The SIW is
described by its and dimensions, its via hole diameter and
separation and by its dielectric constant. The narrow dimension
is 0.508 mm and its aspect ratio is 0.07. The substrate dielectric
constant is 2.33. The spacing between via holes is 1.524 mm and
the diameter of the via holes is 0.8 mm. The ferrite material is a
nickel one with a saturation magnetization T.
Its relative dielectric constant is 14.1. The design frequency is
taken as 22 GHz, in keeping with some previous work. The
normalized saturation magnetization is . The corre-
sponding demagnetized permeability is 0.86. The radius
of the resonator is 1.45 mm. The dominant wave number
corresponding to these parameters is
[4]. Experimentally it was found to be 2.18. This discrepancy
is in part due to the fact that the SIW’s aspect ratio is signif-
icantly different from that of standard rectangular waveguide.
The choice of such a thin substrate was to ensure that the radian
length of the ferrite does not coincide with any integer number
of half wavelengths of any hybrid modes [5].
III. COMPLEX GYRATOR CIRCUIT
A knowledge of the complex gyrator circuit is useful in de-
sign. It consists of a gyrator conductance in shunt with a
208 IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 14, NO. 5, MAY 2004

Fig. 2. Split frequencies of gyromagnetic resonator versus normalized Fig. 3. Complex gyrator circuit parameters versus normalized magnetization
magnetization (R = 1:45 mm). (R = 1:45 mm).

quarter-wave short-circuited stub, characterized by its suscep-

tance slope parameter . For a weakly magnetized junction of
any junction circulator its quality factor is fixed by the split fre-
quencies of the gyromagnetic resonator [6], [12]

Its susceptance slope parameter is separately fixed by the ge-

ometry of the resonator. These two quantities define the gyrator
conductance. The normalized gyrator conductance is measured
in the usual way by

Where is the VSWR at the circulation frequency. This

equivalent circuit is suitable in the design of junction circula-
tors because it allows for an exact synthesis of the matching
network [7]. It must be noted that these measurements were
taken with a reference plane in the microstrip. Although a
slight error is introduced due to the loss of the transition and
the section of SIW, knowledge of the exact terminals of the
junction is not required. Figs. 2 and 3 illustrate the results. The
complex gyrator circuit displays ’s and ’s of approximately
2 and 4, respectively. These values are not compatible with
devices of 20-dB return loss [7]. One means to adjust the values
would be to decrease the resonator thickness. The gyrator
conductance and split frequencies at saturation have also been
extracted from a commercial FE solver. These are compatible
with experiment.
IV. DEGREE-2 CIRCULATOR
The experimental complex gyrator circuit is compatible with
degree-2 devices of 30% bandwidth and 15-dB return loss [7].
One way to match this junction is to employ a quarterwave long
transformer at the terminals of the ferrite. One difficulty with
such a transformer at the plane of the resonator is that it will
place electric walls at the terminals of the resonator. Another is
Fig. 4. Frequency response of SIW degree-1 circulator.
that the flat vertical face of the transformer adjacent to the ferrite
becomes to fragile for handling purposes. In order to overcome
these difficulties the transformer has been arbitrarily displaced
by 20 (0.635 mm) from the ferrite face.
The details of the hybrid transformer produced in this way
have been fixed by having recourse to a commercial Finite El-
ement (FE) solver [8]. Initially a magnetized resonator at the
junction of three SIW’s, with single ridge quaterwave matching
sections displaced 20 from the ferrite face, was optimized to
obtain a degree-2 response. The transition to microstrip was then
included in the simulation and the process repeated. The com-
plete circuit is illustrated in Fig. 1(b). The final dimensions after
optimization were found to be , and
mm [9]. The effective dimensions of the SIW (a and
b) are specified in Section II.
Fig. 4 illustrates the degree-1 frequency response. Fig. 5 sep-
arately illustrates the degree-2 frequency response. The isola-
tion, omitted here for brevity is of the order of the return loss.
An 18% bandwidth at the 15 dB points with an insertion loss
D’ORAZIO et al.: SUBSTRATE INTEGRATED WAVEGUIDE DEGREE-2 CIRCULATOR 209

power levels and is easily integrated with other planar compo-

nents.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to thank J. Gauthier, S. Dubé, and R. Bras-
sard, for their help in fabricating the prototype, and M. Mckay,
Filtronic, for support in providing the ferrites.

Fig. 5. Return and insertion loss of SIW degree-2 circulator.
better than 1.3 dB is obtained. This corresponds to 10 mm of mi-
crostrip, 20 mm of waveguide, and two transitions. The discrep-
ancy between simulation and experiment is due to the simulator
assuming a uniformly saturated ferrite sample, and to inaccura-
cies in adjusting the depth of the ridge transformer. It is worthy
of note that the simulated degree-2 Return Loss was somewhat
better without the transitions. This transition was separately op-
timized using a FE solver. It’s return loss was of the order of
20 dB over the frequency interval of circulation.
[10] H. N. Chait and T. R. Curry, “Y-circulator,” J. Appl. Phys., vol. 30, p.
V. CONCLUSION
[11] J. B. Davies, “An analysis of the m-port symmetrical H-plane waveguide
An integrated SIW circulator suitable for microwave and mil-
limeter wave applications has been developed. An 18% band-
[12] C. E. Fay and R. L. Comstock, “Operation of the ferrite junction circu-
width at the 15-dB points with an insertion loss better than
1.3 dB was obtained. The circuit is capable of handling medium
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