Design of a liquid crystal terahertz phased array

Due to the lack of materials with suitable properties in the terahertz frequency band, the progress of terahertz devices and applications is quite difficult. The dielectric loss of liquid crystal materials decreases with the increase of the frequency band, and the dielectric properties are stable and the tuning rate is high in the terahertz frequency band. In this paper, an 1×4 terahertz phased array is proposed, which is integrated of phase shifter based on liquid crystal, antenna and power divider. The antenna array with a 12° half power lobe width and ±10° scanning angle simulated in HFSS, whose gain is 14.2dBi at 220GHz, and the SLL(sidelobe level) is -9dB. The antenna array shows well-matched, and the return loss is less than -10dB. The integrated design of phase shifter, dielectric rod antenna and multimode interference power divider is realized, which greatly reduces the cost of the phased array antenna and ensures stable dielectric performance in the terahertz frequency band.