Investigation on LNN-Self-Calibration Procedures for Dielectric Waveguide Measurements

The measurement of Dielectric Waveguides (DWG) in the THz range presents unknown challenges. For transmission- and reflection based measurements of the Scattering Parameters (S-parameters), standardized calibration methods have been applied until now, with the main ones being Through, Reflect, Match (TRM) or Through Reflect Line (TRL) methods. However, all of these methods require the Device Under Test (DUT) to be removable. Therefore, an alternative method for Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) based measurements of dielectric waveguides is evaluated. In this paper we examine the possibility of applying the Line Network Network (LNN) method to dielectric waveguides. This method requires no movement of the waveguide structure in a measurement, which leads to less systematic errors and brings the possibility of free space coupled as well as directly coupled measurement setups, as the LNN relies only on the design parameters of the used DWG. The LNN method requires three consecutive obstacle positions for the calibration. This setup leads to a fully actuated self calibrating MEMS-DWG measurement setup. For this purpose, the behaviour of both DWG and dielectric slot waveguides (DSWG) have been investigated. Also, the performance of the different calibration networks was investigated. The obstacles were optimized using the LNN calibration method on simulated results at 300 GHz.