Fully metallic Luneburg metalens antenna in gap waveguide technology at V-band

This article presents the design of a flat Luneburg metalens antenna at V-band using gap waveguide (GW) technology. The metalens consists of a parallel plate waveguide (PPW) loaded with metallic pins whose height is modulated to get an effective refractive index that follows the Luneburg equation. A Groove GW (GGW) H-plane horn is used to illuminate the metalens, such that the rays are collimated and a planar wavefront is generated in the direction of propagation. Since the structure at hand is planar, it can be efficiently integrated on flat surfaces. Moreover, the fully metallic structure is mechanically robust and presents lower losses than lenses including dielectric substrates. A prototype has been fabricated and tested, simulations and experimental results are in very good agreement. The metalens yields an input reflection coefficient (S11) below −10 dB from 45 to 70 GHz, whereas the −3 dB gain fractional bandwidth is 26.2% with respect to a center frequency of 60 GHz, with a peak of 22.5 dB at 61 GHz. These features make this design an interesting solution for millimeter-wave (MMW) applications.