A Broadband W-band Orthomode Transducer for KVN Polarization Observations

Abstract

A W-band Orthomode Transducer (OMT) has been developed for Korean VLBI Network (KVN) polarization observation. The OMT design was based on E-plane split-block technique using septum structure. 3-dimensional electromagnetic simulation was fully employed to optimize the performance of the OMT. Measurements of the fabricated OMT show that the return losses for the vertically and horizontally polarized modes are better than -20 dB across 80 ~ 108 GHz and the insertion losses for the both modes are less than 0.47 dB. The cross-polarization level of the OMT is less than -30 dB. The bandwidth of the developed OMT is estimated as around 30%.

Keywords

• dual-circular polarization
• orthomode transducer
• millimeter waveguide circuits
• radio astronomy receiver system