Robust Contactless Waveguide Flange for Fast Measurements

Good electrical contact is always required between waveguide flanges of the test system and DUT to minimize leakage and losses that will degrade circuit performance. This requires the DUT to be tightly and carefully connected to avoid gaps and mismatches. This can be time consuming, especially when performing repeated measurements on multi-port devices. In this paper we present a contactless flange that can be used at millimeter-wave (mmW) and terahertz (THz) frequencies. Unlike conventional waveguide flanges, the contactless flange can be used to perform fast measurements because normal flange screws are not required. An E-band prototype has already been successfully designed, manufactured, and tested. The use of contactless waveguide flanges allows for faster, accurate, and reliable mmW and THz measurements.