Heterodyne detector for measuring the characteristic of elliptically polarized microwaves.

In the present paper, a device is introduced, which is capable of determining the three characteristic parameters of elliptically polarized light (ellipticity, angle of ellipticity, and direction of rotation) for microwave radiation at a frequency of 110 GHz. The device consists of two perpendicular orientated pickup waveguides. A heterodyne technique mixes the microwave frequency down to frequencies on the order of 200 MHz.