Characterization of a D-Band Electric-Inductive-Capacitive Metamaterial-Based Transmission Line Phase Shifter

This paper presents the design of a phase shifter in the D-band, made by transmission lines loaded with electric-inductive-capacitive metamaterial resonators. The proposed design features a highly linear phase response and relatively low losses. Over a distance of about 1 mm, we achieved a 60°-100° phase shift with respect to the corresponding unloaded transmission line, which corresponds to a dimension reduction of the 45-49%. The device is realized in 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology, where active switching elements could be easily integrated to provide fast reconfigurability. The average insertion loss achieved in the operation band is 2.2 dB and reaches a maximum of 2.8 dB at 170 GHz. A 3D full-wave model is also reported in the paper: simulations shows good matching with the experiments, with relative error less than 7%.