Characterizing Dielectric Materials using Monostatic Transmission- and Reflection-Ellipsometry

The characterization of dielectric materials at microwave frequencies can be done by various measurement principles. Free space methods are a commonly used approach if the material under test (MUT) has to be characterized in-situ or in a non-destructive manner. Since the transmission and reflection parameters of a finite sized dielectric slab typically depend on its thickness, accurate knowledge about this parameter is of high importance. The ellipsometric approach presented in this paper eliminates the thickness dependence and thus allows to reduce a major source of error. This is achieved by performing four measurements. These measure the transmission and reflection factors of the MUT in both polarizations at an incident angle of 45°. The high stability of the measurement allows a simple monostatic setup utilizing a single antenna. The measurements in this paper are performed using Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and Polyvinylchloride (PVC) blocks in the frequency range from 22 GHz to 26 GHz.