Narrow Resonant Double-Ridged Rectangular Waveguide Probe for Near-Field Scanning Microwave Microscopy

In this paper, we propose a narrow resonant waveguide probe that can improve the measurement sensitivity in near-field scanning microwave microscopy. The probe consists of a metal waveguide incorporating the following two sections: a straight section at the tip of the probe whose cross-section is a double-ridged rectangle, and whose height is much smaller than the waveguide width; and a standard waveguide section. The advantage of the narrow waveguide is the same as that of the quarter-wave transformer section i.e., it achieves impedance-matching between the sample under test (SUT) and the standard waveguide. The design procedure used for the probe is presented in detail and the performance of the designed resonant probe is evaluated theoretically by using an equivalent circuit. The calculated results are compared with those obtained using the finite element method (Ansoft HFSS), and consistency between the results is demonstrated. Furthermore, the performance of the fabricated resonant probe is evaluated experimentally. At X-band frequencies, we have measured the one-dimensional scanning reflection coefficient of the SUT using the probe. The sensitivity of the proposed resonant probe is improved by more than two times as compared to a conventional waveguide cavity type probe.