MilliLab

Background experience of MilliLab

The parent organisations of MilliLab, Radio and Microwave Technologies Group of VTT Information Technology and Radio Laboratory of HUT, have a substantial amount of expertise and experience in the field of microwave and millimetre wave technology. For example, a low noise 60 GHz HEMT amplifier, models of Schottky varactors and frequency multipliers, and antenna measurement techniques have been developed for ESA. A space-VLBI-receiver at 22 GHz for the Radioastron-satellite has been constructed within the Finnish-Russian space research co-operation. Also a 119 GHz radiometer front-end and the development of a novel antenna test method up to 119 GHz have been done for the Swedish Odin-satellite. Presently, a 70 GHz receiver is being developed for the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) of the ESA Planck mission. This 70 GHz receiver is based on InP MMIC low noise amplifiers. In addition, atmospheric propagation effects in fixed satellite communications as well as indoor propagation effects in terrestrial mobile communications have been studied. Other microwave and millimetre wave research and development work, such as design of MMICs, numerical modelling of passive circuits, material measurements, and design of novel antennas is constantly performed for the Finnish industry and other customers. In the following, a detailed list of recently published work is given.

Reference subjects list

Active devices, circuits, and systems

On-wafer measurements
Frequency multipliers and dividers
Schottky varactor junctions
Single Barrier Varactors (SBV)
HEMT noise modelling
60 GHz LNA
Low noise amplifiers

    • Picture of a 60 GHz low-noise amplifier, see right

Oscillators
Step Recovery Diode (SRD)
Radiometers

Passive transmission line and device mount analyses

With Method of Moments (MoM)
With Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD)
With Finite Element Method (FEM)

Materials

Material measurement setup


With open resonator

  • Picture of a material measurement setup at 100 GHz, see right

With transmission and reflection method
Absorbers and anechoic chambers

Antennas

Phase measurements
Cable phase error correction
Reflector antenna testing

Radio wave propagation

Indoor propagation
Atmospheric attenuation

Quasi-optical components and beam waveguides

Horn and lens combination and beam probing
Gaussian beam theory
Holograms
Beam splitter, scaled optical components at mm-waves

List of publications
Technical Research Centre of Finland
Helsinki University of Technology
European Space Agency

MilliLab home page

Dec. 21, 2000