Coplanar Waveguide Fabrication and Characteristics.

The effort considers the analysis and design of coplanar waveguide transmission lines for microwave applications to circuits. The major significance to the Air Force was the development of a transmission line that was low cost, easily fabricated and which lent itself to integration of microwave devices and circuit elements. It has been found that the coplanar waveguide meets to a great extent all the above criteria however, because of the field orientation in the guide a large amount of energy is contained below the substrate as well. The coplanar waveguide then will have limited use in high density circuitry because of its tendency to propagate higher order modes and therefore interfere with adjacent circuitry. The major effort in the analysis was the determination of waveguide impedance for finite substrate thickness and various line geometries. Modified author abstract