A Dual-Band High-Gain Subwavelength Cavity Antenna with Artificial Magnetic Conductor Metamaterial Microstructures

This paper presents dual-band high-gain subwavelength cavity antennas with artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) metamaterial microstructures. We developed an AMC metamaterial plate that can be equivalent to mu-negative metamaterials (MNMs) at two frequencies using periodic microstructure unit cells. A cavity antenna was constructed using the dual-band AMC metamaterial plate as the covering layer and utilizing a feed patch antenna with slot loading as the radiation source. The antenna was fabricated with a printed circuit board (PCB) process and measured in an anechoic chamber. The |S11| of the antenna was −26.8 dB and −23.2 dB at 3.75 GHz and 5.66 GHz, respectively, and the realized gain was 15.2 dBi and 18.8 dBi at two resonant frequencies. The thickness of the cavity, a sub-wavelength thickness cavity, was 15 mm, less than one fifth of the long resonant wavelength and less than one third of the short resonant wavelength. This new antenna has the advantages of low profile, light weight, dual-frequency capability, high gain, and easy processing.

Broadband metasurfaces loaded with non-Foster elements

Metasurfaces have been widely used to design low-profile antennas, thin absorbers, lenses etc. The operational frequency band of a metasurface is rather narrow due to its resonant nature. Loading metasurface unit cells with non-Foster elements allows for remarkable bandwidth extension. In this paper, design of a broadband metasurface to operate as an artificial magnetic conductor is considered. The main issues which influence the bandwidth extension such as implementation of the non-Foster load, minimization of conversion error of a negative impedance converter, and circuit stabilization are addressed.

An Artificial Magnetic Conductor-Based Wideband Circularly Polarized Antenna with Low-Profile and Enhanced Gain

A broadband circularly polarized (CP) antenna with enhanced gain and low profile is proposed. Two identical dipoles with full wavelength are placed orthogonally to generate radiation waves with equal amplitude and orthogonal polarization. The arms of the dipoles are designed as stepped patches to enlarge the impedance matching bandwidth and axial ratio (AR) bandwidth. Crossed-dipoles with full wavelength are utilized as the main radiators to provide a wide operating bandwidth and enhanced gain, and an artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) structure is introduced as the reflector to reduce the profile of the whole antenna. Due to the introduction of the AMC structure, the antenna profile is reduced from 12.8 to 6.9 mm, that is, reduced to 0.14λ0 (where λ0 denotes the wavelength corresponding to the center frequency of the passband, 4.0–8.5 GHz). A simulation and experiment were carried out to verify the performance of the proposed antenna. Experimental results showed that the antenna realized an impedance bandwidth of 74%, an AR bandwidth of 67.7%, a peak gain of 12.1 dBic, and an average gain of 10.69 dBic.