Phase Reconfiguration via SIW Structures Filled with Liquid Metal

This paper presents substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) phase shifter that can be reconfigured using liquid metal. The phase shifter is developed to be used for antenna applications. This digital phase shifter incorporates a series of holes which can be filled or emptied of liquid metal, enabling us to add or remove via connections dynamically, on-the-fly. We employ a switched line approach to achieve course phase control along with reactive loading to achieve fine steps of phase control. By employing both forms of reconfiguration in unison the proposed phase shifter is able to deliver a phase shift of up to 180° in steps of 10°. The proposed phase shifter operates at 10 GHz and exhibits a measured insertion loss of less than 2.3 dB over its entire operating band.