A Quasi-Optical Free-Space Method for Dielectric Constant Characterization of Polymer Materials in mm-wave Band
 
A Quasi-Optical Free-Space Method for Dielectric Constant Characterization of Polymer Materials in mm-wave Band 
 
Amna Elhawil, Lixiao Zhang, Johan Stiens, Cathleen De Tandt, Nicolaas-Alexander Gotzen, Guy Van Assche, Roger Vounckx
 
Abstract 

Polymers attract more and more attention as low loss dielectric materials in RF and millimeter wave field, because of their interest properties at high frequencies. In this work, we report a Quasi-Optical free-space method to derive W-band dielectric constant of some common-used polymers including Polymethylmethacrylate, polyvinylchloride, Nylon66, Mylar, polytetra-fluorethylene, polypropylene, high and low density polyethylene, kapton and polyethersulfone. Free-space transmission/ reflection coefficients of the aforementioned materials are measured with a millimeter wave network analyzer. Genetic algorithm (GA) is employed to compute the complex dielectric constant. The results are compared with those in other previously published works.