A flexible transmission line, consisting of a thin ceramic-compounding Teflon strip, was devised by using a high permittivity LSE-NRD guide. This transmission line has the advantage of changeable shape. Low-loss performance was confirmed by measuring the transmission loss of the 180 degree bend and the S-shaped curve in the 60 GHz frequency band.

A technique for the design of circular- and racetrack-shaped NRD guide ring resonators was developed based on the mode coupling theory. Besides the operating mode, a parasitic mode is generated at curved sections of the resonator as a result of the mode conversion. Resonance of the NRD guide ring resonator is derived by characteristic equations of the coupled modes and then employed in making the design diagrams, which are useful for determining the dimensions of the ring resonators. It is shown that the discrepancy between the experimental results and previous theory can be resolved by using the present theory. Low loss, small-sized ring resonators with curvature radii of less than 5.3 mm were fabricated at 60 GHz and a band rejection performance of more than 30 dB was observed. Moreover, a procedure for the design of the channel dropping filter was developed and a 2-pole filter, which has great advantages such as a low insertion loss of 1.2 dB and a compact size smaller than that of a golf ball, was successfully developed by using two racetrack-shaped ring resonators.

A transition between an NRD guide, suitable for construction of high performance millimeter-wave integrated circuits, and a microstrip line, being used to mount semiconductor devices such as HEMT, HBT, and MMIC, was developed at 60 GHz. The main emphasis was placed on the manner of field matching between the NRD guide and the microstrip line. We propose adoption of this a new transition structure employing a vertical strip line, which can be easily coupled to the NRD guide, and a coaxial line connected to the microstrip line. Moreover, we applied a packaging structure with a choke circuit for the microstrip line to prevent undesired leakage between the NRD guide and the microstrip line. The insertion loss of the fabricated transition was measured to be less than 0.5 dB in the bandwidth of 3 GHz at a center frequency of 60.5 GHz. The transition was applied to MMIC amplifier integration in the NRD guide at 60 GHz. The forward and reverse gains were measured to be 15 dB and -20 dB, respectively, at 60 GHz.

A ring-resonator type of electrode (RRTE) has been proposed to detect the circulating tumor cell (CTC) for evaluation of the current cancer progression and malignancy in clinical applications. Main emphasis is placed on the identification sensitivity for the lossy materials that can be found in biomedical fields. At first, the possibility of the CTC detection was numerically considered to calculate the resonant frequency of the RRTE catching the CTC, and it was evident that the RRTE with the cell has the resonant frequency inherent in the cell featured by its complex permittivity. To confirm the numerical consideration, the BaTiO3 particle, whose size was similar to that of the CTC, was inserted in the RRTE instead of the CTC as a preliminary experiment. Next, the resonant frequencies of the RRTE with internal organs of the beef cattle such as liver, lung, and kidney were measured for evaluation of the lossy materials such as the CTC, and degraded Q curves were observed because the Q-factors inherent in the internal organs were usually low due to the poor loss tangents. To overcome such difficulty, the RRTE, the oscillator circuit consisting of the FET being added, was proposed to improve the identification sensitivity. Comparing the identification sensitivity of the conventional RRTE, it has been improved because the oscillation frequency spectrum inherent in an internal organ could be easily observed thanks to the oscillation condition with negative resistance. Thus, the validity of the proposed technique has been confirmed.

A high permittivity LSE-NRD guide was applied to a planar antenna at 60 GHz. Emphasis was placed on compatibility between the high permittivity LSE-NRD guide and the conventionally used low permittivity LSM-NRD guide. Performance of the transition between two such types of NRD guides was optimized by using an electromagnetic simulator and the validity was experimentally demonstrated. A simple radiator, consisting of a tapered high permittivity LSE-NRD guide was fabricated and evaluated as to radiation characteristics. Since the radiator has a broad radiation pattern, it was employed in a primary radiator of a two-dimensional parabolic reflector to develop a new type of folded planar antenna at 60 GHz. This planar antenna has a double-layered structure. In the upper layer, a metalized dielectric substrate with a slotted array is excited by a rectangular-shaped oversized waveguide, and in the lower layer, an offset parabolic reflector is fed by the radiator. Measurement showed the half-power beam width of the fabricated antenna to be 2.5 degrees in the E and H planes, respectively, and the gain to be 35.3 dBi, thus indicating that a good pencil beam antenna was successfully developed in this manner.

Although TE0nδ mode ceramic resonators are usually used at centimeter frequencies, they have difficulty in making wide-band band-pass filters in the millimeter-wave region due to the weak coupling factors between TE0nδ mode resonators and input/output waveguides. In order to overcome such difficulty, a band-widening technique of the ceramic resonator loaded band-pass filter has been proposed. The EHnmδ modes were regarded as spurious modes so far, but it is clear that the coupling factors are larger than those of the TE0nδ modes from the results of experimental considerations in this paper. By using the EH11δ mode ceramic resonators, 5-pole, 1 dB Chebyshev ripple NRD guide band-pass filter has been fabricated for the applications to broad-band millimeter-wave communication systems at 60 GHz. The filter has great advantages such as the wide pass-band beyond 2 GHz and low excess insertion loss of less than 0.3 dB.

Transmission characteristics of a high permittivity NRD guide were investigated. A preferable operating mode of the high permittivity NRD guide was newly identified and the wide bandwidth and low loss nature of the millimeter-wave region were observed. Moreover, a technique for construction of a millimeter-wave antenna was developed based on the high permittivity NRD guide. The novelty of the present technique lies in the use of a simple radiator, which consists of a tapered dielectric strip of simple structure which has good compatibility with millimeter wave integrated circuits. Since this radiator has a broad radiation pattern, a new type of antenna compatible with millimeter-wave integrated circuits for marine radar use was fabricated by locating the radiator at the focal point of a cylindrical parabolic reflector. Suitable beam patterns with half-power beam widths of 4in the azimuth plane and 38in the elevation plane can be obtained at 35 GHz.

Two types of p-i-n diode devices, namely an amplitude shift keying switch and a phase shift keying switch, were developed by using an NRD guide at 77 GHz. In order to apply these devices to radar systems, an SPDT switch with a low insertion loss of less than 2.5 dB and a high isolation of more than 25 dB was fabricated by using the former switch. Moreover, a BPSK modulator, composed of the latter switch together with a circulator and a ceramic resonator loaded band-pass filter, was designed and evaluated for use in spread spectrum radar systems in this frequency range.

An NRD guide transmitter and a receiver were developed for a wireless multi-channel TV-signal distribution system at 60 GHz. The main emphasis was placed on a band-widening technique of the NRD guide beam-lead diode mount based on an electromagnetic field simulator, where each dimension of the beam lead diode mount was optimized. The agreement between the simulation and measurement is quite satisfactory. The up-converter fabricated by assembling a band-pass filter and a Schottky barrier diode mount has a good linearity as well as a flat output power of 2 dBm on the average over a bandwidth of at least 2 GHz. Moreover, the down-converter has a flat conversion loss performance of less than 7 dB in the same bandwidth. An NRD guide transmitter and a receiver characterized by small size and high performance were fabricated and successfully employed for the wireless distribution of TV signals for more than 100 channels.

Because 60 GHz frequency band has been allotted for the research and development purpose of millimeter wave systems in Japan, various circuit components and systems have been fabricated by using printed transmission lines. The NRD guide (nonradiative dielectric waveguide) is another candidate as a transmission medium for millimeter wave integrated circuit applications since its performance has been shown to be excellent in this frequency band. This paper is concerned with the development of a 60 GHz digital transceiver for millimeter wave LAN use based on NRD guide technologies. The trans-ceiver consists of frequency stabilized Gunn oscillator, circulator, PIN diode modulator, balanced mixer, directional coupler and transmitting and receiving pyramidal horn antennas. The notable advantages of the circuit components are the high reliability of the Gunn oscillator, the wide bandwidth of the circulator, and the high frequency operation of the PIN diode modulator beyond 100 Mbps. Interference between transmitted and received signals, which must be caused by coupling between transmitting and receiving antennas, is eliminated by simple techniques such as introducing filters in the base band and IF circuits. By using NRD guide digital transceivers, both-way data transmission between two computers can be achieved simultaneously and a 60 GHz wireless LAN system has been developed successfully.

A mode transformer between the NRD guide and the vertical strip line was developed and applied to the right angle corner, T-junction, and 3-port junction at 60 GHz. Emphasis was placed on a fully CAD-based design procedure by using an electromagnetic field simulator. Agreement between the simulated and measured performances of the junction circuit was obtained, and thus the validity of the design procedure was confirmed. A well-balanced transmission coefficient of the 3-port junction, found to be 4 0.5 dB, was observed in the bandwidth of 2 GHz around a center frequency of 60 GHz.

It is known that a high permittivity NRD guide suffers from irregular transmission phenomena. In this study, we clarified that this problem is caused by a mode coupling phenomenon between the operating and parasitic modes due to a small remaining asymmetrically air gap between the metal plates and high permittivity dielectric materials.

A higher mode tri-plate strip transmission line, in which the first higher mode propagates, was developed to realize mass production of millimeter-wave integrated circuits for application in intelligent transport systems, and its transmission characteristics were investigated. The design diagram of this guided mode was determined and a higher mode tri-plate strip transmission line was fabricated at 30 GHz. The dispersion curve was found to be similar to that of a rectangular waveguide and a low transmission loss of less than 10 dB/m was obtained. For construction of some functional devices, two types of basic reactance components, such as a gap and a slot, were expressed by equivalent circuits. The former was expressed by capacitive parameters, and the latter was expressed by an ideal transformer with inductive parameters. The gap-coupled circuit was successfully employed for a 3-pole 0.1 dB Chebyshev ripple band-pass filter with a small excess insertion loss of less than 1 dB at a center frequency of 32 GHz, as well as no spurious response in a bandwidth from 26.5 GHz to 40 GHz. The slot element acted as a matching circuit and a suppressor of the lowest mode, which is the TEM mode in the tri-plate strip transmission line. Moreover, this element was applied to a mode transformer between the lowest mode and the first higher mode.

A technique to control the radiation pattern of an NRD-guide-compatible pyramidal horn antenna, which consists of a tapered dielectric rod inserted into the horn, was developed for multiple access LAN applications at 60 GHz. By using this simple technique, the half-power beamwidth can be controlled from 11to 40.