Self-Calibrating Noniterative Complex Permittivity Extraction of Thin Dielectric Samples

A microwave method relying on uncalibrated scattering (S-) parameters is proposed to measure the complex permittivity (ε
_r
) of thin dielectric samples. It has the following two main advantages. First, it takes into account effect of the sample holder, used for holding the sample, especially important for thin sample electromagnetic property characterization. Second, it does not require any specific information about the location of the sample (and its holder) inside its measurement cell for ε
_r
extraction. For validation of our method, we applied a commercial three-dimensional electromagnetic simulation program-CST Microwave Studio-and the Lorentz dispersion model. Uncalibrated (as well as calibrated) S-parameter measurements were conducted to measure ε
_r
of a 0.7 mm thick polyethylene sample (the sample holder was a 5.18 mm thick PVC sample) by our method and other similar methods in the literature. From the comparison, we observed that while the accuracy of tested methods significantly changed with inaccurate knowledge of the sample position inside its cell, the accuracy of our method did not much alter.