Ku Band High-Q Tunable Cavity Filters using MEMS and Vanadium Dioxide (VO2) Tuners

This paper reports the design and EM-simulations of Ku-band High-Q tunable and switchable cavity resonators and 2-pole cavity filters using, microelectromechanical system (MEMS) fixed fixed beams and, Vanadium Dioxide (VO2) Phase Change Material (PCM) tuners. The devices are copper surfacemounted cavities bonded on low permittivity substrates, on which are processed RF-MEMS and VO2 tuners. The tuners are located opposite to capacitive posts in the middle of each cavity, where the E-field of the resonant mode is maximum in order to obtain a wide tuning range. By using either the actuation of the fixed fixed beams, or the reversible Metal-to-Insulator Transition (MIT) of VO2, the resonators and filters resonant frequencies are shifted by achieving a variation of the parasitic capacitance created between the posts top and the tuners. Electromagnetic simulations have been conducted and exhibit at least 1 GHz of frequency shift and high unloaded quality factors (Qu).