Calibration-Free Time-Domain Free-Space Permittivity Extraction Technique

Abstract

A time-domain free-space technique has been proposed to extract relative permittivity ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\varepsilon _{r}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ) and effective conductivity ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sigma _{e}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ) of low-loss dielectric samples using their metal- and air-backed calibration-free reflected powers. Numerical computations and 3-D electromagnetic simulations were performed to validate the method. A sensitivity analysis was carried out to examine its accuracy. Calibration-free time-domain free-space measurements over 1–12 GHz were conducted by VNA to extract <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\varepsilon _{r}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sigma _{e}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> of polyethylene and polypropylene low-loss samples.