Characterization of an F-Band Horn Antenna Based on Electro-Optic Near-Field Measurements

We demonstrate the characterization of a horn antenna in the full F-band (90 similar to 140 GHz) based on far-field transformation from near-field electro-optic (EO) measurement. Our nonpolarimetric self-heterodyne EO sensing system enables us to simultaneously measure the spatial distribution of the amplitude and phase of the RF signal. Because free-running lasers are used to generate and detect the RF signal, our EO sensing system has wide frequency tunability. Owing to the stable and reliable amplitude and phase measurements with minimal field perturbation, the estimated far-field patterns agree well with those of the simulated results. We have evaluated the estimation errors of the 3-dB beamwidth and position of the first sidelobe. The largest standard error of the measurements was 1.1 degrees for 3-dB beamwidth and 3.5 degrees for the position of first sidelobe at frequency 90 GHz. Our EO sensing system can be used to characterize and evaluate terahertz antennas for indoor communication applications such as small-size slot array antennas.