Tunable parallel plate waveguide array based on VO₂ thin films

Abstract Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is a material with a metal-insulator phase transition. We report a way of application of VO2 thin films as functional elements of reconfigurable parallel plate waveguide array (PPWA). The PPWA presented here is designed to work in X, Ku and K bands. A transmission coefficient of the array with VO2 elements can be altered using temperature by more than 10 dB across the entire experimentally studied frequency range. We demonstrate a method of design and manufacturing of the PPWA. The PPWA may be used as a basic component in more advanced reconfigurable devices.