Design of a planar meta-surface based on dipoles and wires for antenna applications

Abstract

In this paper, the design of a planar meta-surface based on dipoles and wires is presented. The unit cell is formed by three independent layers, which contain two parallel dipoles and one wire. The behaviour of these elements have been analysed separately as an independent unit cell, i.e., the one dipole unit cell, the two dipoles unit cell and the two dipoles and wire unit cell, by means of the transmission response and the dispersion diagrams. For a normal incident plane wave with the E field parallel to the wires and the H field axial to the dipoles, the electric and magnetic responses are excited producing a pass band behaviour which exhibit negative refractive index. This cell has been used to create meta-surfaces for antenna applications. Two configurations have been analysed; the first one is a superstrate of a dipole antenna with the pass band tuned to the resonant frequency of the dipole. It has been observed that the power goes through the meta-surface and is radiated mainly in boresight direction, which increases the directivity up to 8 dBi and the aperture efficiency of the whole configuration. In the second case, a substrate with the stop band tuned to the pass band of the superstrate and the resonant frequency of the dipole has been added. A directivity higher than 9 dBi with a back radiation of -20 dBi have been obtained.