Millimeter Wave Imaging Array Using a Chip First Additive Manufacturing Process

This paper provides a proof-of-concept demonstration of the utilization of additive manufacturing (AM) in the fabrication of sensors for millimeter wave (mmWave) and potentially terahertz (THz) imaging applications. A chip first approach is utilized in which commercially available GaAs based Schottky diodes are mounted upon a liquid crystal polymer (LCP) substrate, after which dielectric and conductive layers are deposited via aerosol jet printing and cured/sintered to form the integrated imaging pixel element. A log periodic tooth antenna design was selected for preliminary demonstration of this procedure and yielded stable detection performance above 20 GHz, indicating the viability of combining the high-throughput, simplicity, and low-cost advantages of AM with the strict performance requirements of THz electronics.