Figure-of-Merits Mismatch in Liquid Crystals mmWave Phase Shifters

This work conducts computational analysis into a liquid crystal (LC) based enclosed coplanar waveguide (ECPW) phase shifter, comparing among 16 types of LC respectively at 60 GHz. Results reveal a mismatch between the patterns of the device’s figure-of-merit (FoM, the ratio of maximum differential phase shift to maximum insertion loss) and those of the LC materials’ intrinsic FoM (the ratio of tunability to dissipation factor). Noteworthy, phase shifters with GT7-29001 and MDA-03-2838 obtain the highest FoM for devices, outperforming those filled with GT5-28004 and TUD-566 claimed with the highest FoM for materials.