There are several methods for measuring complex permittivity, which were mentioned in the previous section. If we want to use a broadband measurement method that is non-destructive and non-invasive, we should choose the open coaxial line reflection method or the free space method, which are discussed in this article.
4.1. Reflection method
The reflection method involves measuring the reflection coefficient at the interface of two materials, at the open end of the concentric line (as a detector) and on the tested material (
Figure 1). This is a well-known method for determining dielectric parameters. This method is based on the fact that the reflection coefficient of an open coaxial line depends on the dielectric parameters of the MUT connected to it. To calculate complex permittivity from the measured reflectance it is useful to use the equivalent perimeter of an open coaxial line [
9].
Figure 1 shows the measurement of complex permittivity from the point of view of electromagnetic field theory and electromagnetic wave propagation at the interface between two materials with different impedances. The probe translates changes in MUT (Measurement Under Test) permittivity into changes in the input reflectance of the probe.
The surface of the MUT sample must have perfect contact with the probe. The thickness of the sample to be measured must be at least twice the equivalent depth of penetration of the electromagnetic wave
d. This thickness ensures attenuation of reflected waves by approximately -35 dB, which means that their impact on the measured reflection coefficient is insignificant.
The open-end coaxial probe can be modeled as a coaxial waveguide with a semi-infinite flange, as shown in
Figure 2. In this figure and in the equations below, a and b are the inner and outer radii of the coaxial hole, so that a < b. The incident principal mode of transverse electric and magnetic (TEM) fields propagates along the waveguide. Near the aperture, the TEM wave becomes distorted and the electric field vector begins to acquire a component perpendicular to the aperture plane [
9,
10,
11]. The energy of the incident wave is partially radiated into the dielectric half-space and partially reflected back to the coaxial waveguide, as shown in
Figure 2.
The complex magnitude of the reflected wave depends largely on the dielectric properties of the tested material. Therefore, an open-flange coaxial probe can be used to measure the of a material.
The electromagnetic matching characteristics of an open waveguide probe are the complex reflection coefficient Γ and the normalized input admittance Y. They are connected by the following linear relationship [
12]:
To obtain
of the tested material, it is necessary to know the dependence of these parameters on
The theoretical function Y = Y(
) can be obtained by solving the boundary problem of wave radiation from a semi-infinite flange waveguide. Such a problem can be solved for a coaxial line. Compared to probes with other waveguide configurations, the coaxial probe enables dielectric measurements at centimeter and millimeter wavelengths, making it convenient and efficient. An approximation of the main TEM mode in a coaxial waveguide with a perfectly conductive flange can be found in the literature. According to these relationships, the integral expression for the normalized input admittance Y can be written as follows [
13,
14,
15]:
where
;
;
is the electrical permittivity of the coaxial probe filling;
is the wavenumber in free space;
and f are the angular and linear frequencies of the microwave signal, respectively; J
0(x) is a zero-order Bessel function; and S
i(x) is a sine integral.
The full-wave solution of the electromagnetic characteristics of a coaxial probe and the influence of higher-order modes on the input admittance were studied by Pournaropoulos and Misra. They found good agreement between the aperture admittances calculated by the full-wave method and the simple TEM mode solution, indicating that the TEM mode approximation is correct.
If the aperture admittance Y is known from measurements, then (9) becomes a transcendental equation with respect to the unknown
. To solve this equation directly, the integral expression in (9) must be evaluated numerically. However, this approach would be computationally expensive to achieve acceptable retrieval accuracy
. Therefore, the integral is represented by a power series with respect to the wavenumber
k. In practice, a finite number of M terms from this series is assumed [
12,
16]:
In this equation (10), the coefficients G
m and C
m depend only on the radii of the coaxial probe
a and
b. Equations for the first few coefficients in this series can be found in the literature. However, general formulations of G
m and C
m for any m are not available in the literature. At the same time, these expressions are crucial to perform analysis over a wide range of frequencies and dielectric constants. Therefore, general equations for the coefficients G
m and C
m have been specially derived as [
16]:
We have made sure that the first five Gm coefficients and the first five Cm coefficients calculated from (11) and (12) coincide with the corresponding values reported in the literature. Note that in several publications the input admittance is represented by a triple integral in real coordinate space. However, in this case, calculating the coefficients in the appropriate power series would be much more complicated.
Let us assume that the input admittance Y = Y
meas is known from the measurements. Then the transcendental equation with respect to k can be written as follows [
16]:
To solve equation (13), we use the iterative Newton-Raphson method. According to this approach, the solution in the current iteration k(j) can be expressed by the solution in the previous iteration k(j−1) as follows [
16]:
To initiate the iterative process (14), a zero-order approximation k(0) must be provided. If we keep terms with the second and fourth powers of k only in (10), we obtain the following biquadratic equation, which can be solved with respect to k(0):
Our analysis shows that satisfactory convergence of the iterative process (14) occurs in four to five iterations for all frequencies and dielectric constants. The true aperture diameter admittance
for the sample is obtained from the composite reflectance coefficient S
11 measured by the vector network analyzer (VNA). Considering that the cable and connectors represent a linear two-port network between the VNA and the aperture, the composite reflectance S
11 of the probe-cable-connectors system is related to the aperture admittance
as follows [
12,
16]:
where A, B i C are complex coefficients related to the structure of the probe. These coefficients can be found using a set of three calibration measurements of three materials with known admittances. For each calibration measurement, the VNA measures the appropriate reflectances (S
11)
1,2,3. Substituting
in (16) with the known values (S
11)
1,2,3 measured for three selected calibration materials, we obtain a system of equations with respect to A, B and C. Therefore, A, B and C (as functions of frequency) can be found by solving equation (16). These factors must be found for each measurement and are the correction factors needed to determine the admittance of the material being tested.
The method of solving the complex equation (16) consists in breaking it into a real and imaginary part, thus obtaining a system of two real nonlinear equations for two unknowns. To obtain A, B and C, the admittance is measured for three materials with known complex permittivity and then a system of three equations is solved for the unknowns A, B and C. In order to measure complex permittivity of the tested sample, the admittance is measured by measuring the S11 parameter and a system of three equations for the unknown real and imaginary parts is solved.
Based on the above analyses, we can assume that the input admittance of the equivalent circuit can be related to the measured S
11 coefficient as [
16]:
where Y
0 = 1/(50 Ω) = 0,02 S is the characteristic admittance of the probe.
4.2. Free space method
The free space method is used to determine
and
from the reflection and transmission coefficients of a flat sample. This method is particularly suitable for fast, routine and broadband measurements of
and
of high-loss materials. For materials with dielectric (or magnetic) loss less than 0.1, loss angle coefficient measurements are inaccurate due to errors in reflection and transmission measurements. The dielectric constant and loss tangent of low-loss materials can be accurately measured using the free space method, which involves measuring the reflectance of a metal-coated sample [
17].
In the free-space method, the reflection (S
11) and transmission (S
21) coefficients of a flat sample for a normally incident plane wave are measured. The complex parameters
and
are calculated from the measured S
11 and S
21. For thin and flexible samples of magnetic materials, the measurement accuracy of S
11 is low due to the sample sagging when mounted on the sample holder. Such samples are therefore placed between two quartz plates that have half the wavelength in the midband. The actual reflectance and transmittance coefficients S
11 and S
21, of the sample are calculated from the measured S
11 and S
21 of the quartz plate-sample-quartz plate assembly based on knowledge of the composite permittivity and thickness of the quartz plates [
17].
Figure 3 shows a flat sample of thickness
d placed in free space. The complex electric permittivity and the complex magnetic permeability with respect to free space are defined as:
When analyzing the determination of dielectric parameters, it should be assumed that a flat sample has an infinite transverse dimension, so diffraction effects at the edges can be neglected. A linearly polarized, uniform plane wave with frequency
is normally incident on the sample. The reflection and transmission coefficients S
11 and S
21 are measured in free space for a normally incident plane wave. Using the boundary conditions at the air-sample interface (
Figure 3), it can be shown that the parameters S
11 and S
21 are related to the parameters
and T using the following equations [
18,
19,
20]:
where
is the reflection coefficient at the air and sample boundary and T is the transmission parameter defined by:
where
and
are the normalized characteristic impedance and propagation constant of the tested sample. They are related to
and
with the following relationships:
where
represents the propagation constant of free space (wave constant), and
is the wavelength in free space. Based on equations (20) and (21), we can determine S from the scattering matrix as [
21,
22] :
where:
In equation (26), the plus or minus sign is selected based on the relationship
. Using (23), the complex propagation constant
can be written as:
Based on equations (22) and (25), we can determine
as a dependency from the reflectance coefficient at the air-sample interface:
Based on equations (24) and (29), we can determine the complex parameters
i
, depending on the reflectance at the air-sample boundary:
Based on equations (30) and (31), we can express the complex parameters
and i
as a dependence on the parameters of the scatter matrix S [
18,
20,
21,
22]:
where
can be expressed:
where n = 0, ±1, ±2, …;
and
is the normalized characteristic impedance and propagation constant of the tested sample; T - transmission parameter; d - sample thickness.