A New Stand-Alone Microwave Instrument for Measuring the Complex Permittivity of Materials at Microwave Frequencies

[EN] This paper reports the development of a stand-alone and portable instrument designed to measure the complex permittivity of dielectric materials at microwave frequencies. The equipment consists of an in-house single-port vectorial reflectometer and a resonant coaxial bi-reentrant microwave cavi...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Gutiérrez Cano, José Daniel, Plaza González, Pedro José|||0000-0002-2623-0782, Canós Marín, Antoni Josep|||0000-0002-5241-0242, García-Baños, Beatriz|||0000-0001-7862-3417, Catalá Civera, José Manuel|||0000-0002-0617-1762, Penaranda-Foix, Felipe L.|||0000-0003-4012-0763
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV)
Repositorio:RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:riunet.upv.es:10251/165728
Acceso en línea:https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/165728
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Dielectric properties
Microwave cavities and resonators
Microwave instruments
Permittivity measurements
Vector Network Analyzer (VNA)
TEORIA DE LA SEÑAL Y COMUNICACIONES
Descripción
Sumario:[EN] This paper reports the development of a stand-alone and portable instrument designed to measure the complex permittivity of dielectric materials at microwave frequencies. The equipment consists of an in-house single-port vectorial reflectometer and a resonant coaxial bi-reentrant microwave cavity where the material under test is placed inside a Pyrex vial, making the device appropriate for measuring liquids, semi-solids, powders and granular materials. The relation between the dielectric properties of the involved materials and the cavity resonance has been solved by numerical methods based on mode-matching and circuit analysis. In order to increase the measurement range, so that low to high loss materials can be characterized in the same cavity, the effect of the coupling network is de-embedded from the resonance measurements. The performance of the newly devised instrument is evaluated by error/uncertainty analysis and comparative studies with other well-established instruments and methods. Errors lower than 2% in the dielectric constant, and 5% in the loss factor, are found. This simple, portable, affordable and robust device could help non-specialized personnel to accurately measure dielectric properties of materials used in a wide range of microwave applications.