Beam Pattern for a Single Slot Antenna Larry

Beam Pattern for a Single Slot Antenna Larry Isenhower Summer 2002

What exactly am I doing? • At first I was writing Lab. View programs to talk with many different instruments in the lab to get their information onto a computer. • Then I began to make measurements on a scale model single slot planar antenna to make a far field beam pattern to help test simulations that have been made for the actual antenna.

What will the antenna be used for? • The antenna I am mapping is a scale model for a possible antenna that may be used to study the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) • This new antenna will be sensitive to the polarization of the CMB and will be smaller than existing antennas.

What is the CMB? • It is the oldest light in the universe. • The CMB allows astronomers to find many fundamental parameters. • This is the CMB power spectrum obtained from current data. From Max Tegmark’s webpage

The antenna • First I needed to verify that our antenna resonated at the correct frequency that we had predicted.

Far field setup

Far Field beam map • After having verified that the antenna really did resonate at the predicted frequency I moved on to make a Far Field beam map.

Still more about the antenna • We also had a lens made for the antenna. The main peak occurs at 30 degrees because of the slot being off center, but we don’t know what is causing the asymmetry.

Where I stand now • I have finished mapping the single slot antenna. • The next step is to figure out the problem with our lens. • Then we would get a scale model of the actual antenna that we will be using in our experiments and test that.