A self-biased 3D tunable helical antenna in ferrite LTCC substrate

Abstract

A ferrite LTCC based helical antenna which also provides magneto-static bias for its frequency tuning is presented in this work. The 3D helical-cum-bias winding design avoids the use of large external electromagnets which are traditionally used with ferrite based tunable antennas. This reduces the overall size of the design while making it efficient by getting rid of demagnetization effect experienced at the air-to-ferrite interface. RF choke and DC blocking capacitor, required to isolate the RF and DC passing through a single structure, are integrated within the multi-layer Ferrite LTCC substrate. Magnetostatic and microwave simulations have been carried out for the design optimization. The prototype antenna demonstrates a tuning range of 10 % around 13 GHz. An optimized design with an air cavity is also presented which reduces the biasing power requirement by 40 %.