Physical Optics Corporation — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N171-074

Description

To address the Navy need for fast, affordable, and reliable tunable notch filters at X-band frequencies, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new Tunable, Rapid, Electronically Controlled X-band (T-REX) notch filter, based on a resonating RF structure utilizing ferroelectric-based capacitors for ultrafast-frequency tuning. The innovation in the resonating RF structure provides a large tunable range by using voltage-variable barium strontium titanate (BST) capacitors to quickly (<1 microsecond) change the impedance to shift the operational frequency. As a result T-REX filters offer notch attenuation >40dB location within the 8 GHz to 12 GHz range, minimal passband insertion loss (<0.3 dB), and a notch bandwidth from 80 MHz to 1200 MHz with low reflected power (<10%), which directly address the Navy need for low-cost electronic warfare and military communications systems that suppress interference. In Phase I, POC will demonstrate the feasibility of T-REX by fabricating a single filter element and showing its ability to be dynamically adjusted with low VSWR (<1.5:1), and low insertion loss (<0.3 dB), reaching TRL-3. In Phase II, POC plans to develop a full (TRL)-5 prototype for use by the Navy that can be tested at government facilities for demonstration and evaluation.