Development of Piezo-Operated Dielectric Phase Shifter

Possible alternative of low loss and highly tunable MEMS phase shifter is discussed. Dielectric or metallic parts of device should have the piezo-dirigible air gap between them. Important is to provide a strong perturbation in electro magnetic field in the region influenced by the mechanical control. Energy distribution within the device is controlled by piezoelectric actuator, and can be described as a change in effective dielectric permittivity (epsiv_eff). Some of highly tunable piezoelectric RF MEMS devices are realized experimentally