Lab Manual

Aim of Experiment:
Find the change in characteristics impedance and reflection coefficients of the transmission line by
changing the dielectric properties of materials embedded between two conductors.

Requirement:
You have to install a LabVIEW Run time Engine on your computer to run the exe file in order to
perform the experiment. The Run Time Engine can be downloaded free of cost from the following link:
http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/1101/lang/en

Knowledge Required for the Experiment:

Transmission Lines
Reflection Coefficient ()
Coaxial Transmission Lines
Parallel Plate Transmission Lines
Strip Lines
Microstrip Lines

Objective of Experiment:
This experiment will make you familiar to the design of the various transmission lines and the
differences in their geometry. Here, one can get the brief description of the transmission line
parameters as well. This experiment shows the change in the dielectric property of the material
effects the characteristic impedance (Zo) and the reflection coefficients () of the transmission lines. In
this experiment, one can see the variation of the reflection coefficient magnitude (||) and the phase
with the frequency. Here, you can get well acquainted with the geometry of the various transmission
lines and the difference between them.

Theory:
Transmission Lines: The transmission lines are used as wave-guiding structures for transferring
power and information from one point to another. Transmission line is often schematically
represented as a two wire line, since transmission lines always have at least two conductors. A
maximum transfer of power from a given voltage source occurs under "matched conditions". A line is
matched when the load impedance is equal to the characteristic impedance of the line.

Fig.1 Transmission line terminated with a load impedance ZL

For a finite transmission line having characteristic impedance Zo terminated by a load impedance of
ZL, and the length of line is"." A sinusoidal voltage source Vg with an internal impedance Zg is
connected to the line at z=0. In such a case, total voltage on the line can be written as the sum of
incident and reflected waves.

Similarly, the total current on the line is described as:

The total voltage and current at the load are related by the load impedance, so at z=0 we must have

Solving for Vo- gives

The amplitude of the reflected voltage wave normalized to the amplitude of the incident voltage wave
is defined as the voltage reflection coefficient,

From the above relation, we can see that only when = 0, there is no reflected wave.

Coaxial Transmission Lines: This consists of an inner conductor and a coaxial outer conducting
sheath separated by a dielectric medium. This structure has an important advantage of confining the
electric and magnetic fields entirely within the dielectric region. No stray fields are generated by a
coaxial transmission line, and little external interference is coupled into the line. Examples are
telephone and TV cables and the input cables to high - frequency precision measuring instruments.

(a) (b)

Fig 2.(a) Geometry of coaxial line (b) Layered structure of Coaxial line
Characteristic Impedance, Zo can be given as:

Parallel Plate Transmission Line This type of transmission line consists of two parallel conducting
plates separated by a dielectric slab of a uniform thickness. It is the simplest type of the transmission
lines.

Fig.3 Geometry of parallel Plate Transmission Line

For a parallel plate transmission line with perfectly conducting plates of width 'w' and separated by a
lossless dielectric slab of thickness d, the characteristic impedance, Zo is d/w times the intrinsic
impedance of the dielectric medium.
Characteristic Impedance, Zo of the parallel plate transmission line can be obtained from the relation:

Strip Lines: This is a planar type of transmission line that lends itself well to microwave integrated
circuitry and photolithographic fabrication. A thin conducting strip of width 'W' is centered between two
wide conducting ground planes of separation 'H', thickness of strip is 'T' and the entire region
between the ground planes is filled with dielectric, r . Since strip line has two conductors and a
homogeneous dielectric, it can support a TEM wave, and this is the usual mode of operation.

Fig.4 Geometry of strip lines

The phase velocity of a TEM mode is given by, where c is the speed of light in vaccum.
The characteristic impedance is given by:

Where we is the effective width of the center conductor given by:

Microstrip Lines: The microstrip line is one of the most popular types of planar transmission lines,
because it can be fabricated by photolithographic processes and is easily integrated with other
passive and active microwave devices. The geometry of a microstrip line is shown in the figure below.
A conductor of width 'W' is printed on a thin, grounded dielectric substrate of thickness 'h' and relative
permittivity r.

Fig.5 Geometry of microstrip lines

The presence of the dielectric, and particularly the fact that the dielectric does not fill the air region
above the strip, complicates the behavior of microstrip line. The microstrip has some (usually most) of
its field lines in the dielectric region, concentrated between the strip conductor and the ground plane,
and some fraction in the air region above the substrate. For this reason the microstrip line cannot
support a pure TEM wave, since the phase velocity of TEM fields in the dielectric region would be
c/r, but the phase velocity of TEM fields in the air region would be c. Thus, a phase mismatch
occurs at the dielectric- air interface.

Microstrip lines support quasi-TEM mode. Since some of the field lines are in dielectric region and
some are in air, the effective dielectric constant satisfies the relation:

1 < e < r and is dependent on the substrate thickness, h, and the conductor width, W.
The effective dielectric constant of a microstrip line is given approximately by

For given dimensions of the microstrip line, the characteristic impedance can be calculated as:

For given characteristic impedance Zo and dielectric constant r, the W/h ratio can be found as:

where A = (Zo/60)(r + 1)/2 + {(r - 1)/(r + 1)}*(0.23 + 0.11/r)

B = 377 / (2Zor)

Procedure:
Please download the files to perform the actual experiment. The exe file is the LabView file that will
run on Lab VIEW Run time Engine.

Step 1: Set the maximum frequency range between 5-10 GHz.

Step 2: Select the type of transmission line from the drop down menu.
Step 3: Now select the sample material for which you wish to find the change in characteristic
impedance and reflection coefficient of the transmission line.
Step 4: Run the VI to see the characteristic impedance (Zo), the || vs. frequency curve and the
reflection coefficient phase angle vs. frequency curve.
Step 5: In case, you wish to see the characteristic impedance (Zo), the || vs. frequency curve and the
reflection coefficient phase angle vs. frequency curve for other sample materials, then click stop and
repeat steps 1, 2 and 3 before running the exe file again.

Task:
1. Compare the reflection coefficient magnitude and phase variation with frequency for dielectric
material Teflon and Alumina in case of microstrip transmission line and note down the
observations.
 2. Explain the change in characteristic impedance and reflection coefficient magnitude and phase
for coaxial transmission line. Plot the reflection coefficient magnitude and phase vs. frequency
graph for parallel plate transmission line for dielectric material resin.

Summary: The experiment shows the change in dielectric properties of a material embedded
between the two conductors change the characteristic impedance and reflection coefficients. This
experiment provides the better understanding of geometry of transmission lines. Here one can
observe the reflection coefficient magnitude and phase variation with frequency.

References:
1. "Microwave Engineering", Third Edition, David M. Pozer
2. "Microwave Devices and Circuits", Third Edition, Edition, Samuel Y.Liao
3. "Field and Wave Electromagnetics", Second Edition, David K.Cheng
4. "Electromagnetic Waves and Radiating System", Edward C.Jordan, Keith G.Balmain
5. Computer Simulation Technology (CST), Darmstadt, Germany, 1998-2003.[online].
Available:http://www.cst.com
6. Agilent Application Note - 11949698, "Basics of Measuring The Dielectric Properties of
Materials"