A Thin Film Distributed Phase Shifter Based on Pyrochlore, Bismuth, and Zinc Niobate

Abstract

There is news of a monolithic Ku-band phase shifter that uses capacitors made of voltage-tunable Bi1.5Zn1.0Nb1.5O7 (BZN) thin films. On single-crystal sapphire substrates, BZN films were deposited using RF magnetron sputtering. A phase-shifter structure with nine sections was constructed using dispersed CPW loading lines. At 15 GHz, a figure of merit of about 50°/dB was obtained, resulting in a differential phase shift of 175° and a maximum insertion loss of 3.5 dB. So far as we are aware, this is the first instance of a BZN thin film-based monolithic adjustable microwave circuit.