A Substrate-Integrated Cavity-Backed Slot Antenna Array in Y-Band

A 16 × 16 substrate-integrated cavity (SIC)-backed slot antenna array in the
Y
-band (170–260 GHz) with high gain, wide bandwidth, simple feeding network, and easy fabrication is presented in this letter. The antenna array consists of 64 2 × 2 SIC-backed slot antenna subarrays and a 64-way metal feeding network. The SIC-backed slot antenna subarray is designed based on high-order modes TM
₁₄₀
, TM
₃₃₀
, and TM
₃₄₀
to realize high gain and wide bandwidth. The metal feeding network is composed of 16 X-shaped cavities and a 16-way full-corporate-feed waveguide network. The X-shaped cavity is introduced to reduce the complexity of the feeding network. The SIC-backed slot antenna is fabricated by high-precision printed circuit board (PCB) for simple radiating unit structure and easy production. The metal feeding network is manufactured by high-precision computer numerical control (CNC) milling process for low loss. Measured results indicate that |
S
₁₁
| of the proposed antenna array performs well within 210–230 GHz. The antenna array achieves the measured gains larger than 25.0 dBi within the working bandwidth and the peak gain is 28.7 dBi at 221 GHz.