Exploring material characteristics by polarimetric MMW radiometry

Abstract

The characterization of dielectric materials is of great importance for many applications. Remote sensing from stand-off position is often desirable, and the use of microwaves, millimeter-waves or THz waves offers useful interaction with matter, depending on its chemical and physical decomposition and of course frequency and polarization. In former investigations a linearly polarized Ka-band radiometer and an electronically steerable polarization rotator were used to extract permittivity from different linear polarization states. Now the radiometer is realized by a W-band fully-polarimetric receiver. In this paper the theoretical background of the new approach is briefly outlined and compared to first measurement results.