Composite Right/Left-Handed Leaky-Wave Antenna with Electrical Beam Scanning Using Thin-Film Ferroelectric Capacitors

This article presents a wide-angle-scanning leaky-wave antenna (LWA) based on a composite right/left-handed (CRLH) transmission line. In contrast to traditional semiconductor elements, thin-film ferroelectric capacitors were implemented in the CRLH unit cells to enable electric beam scanning. The pr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Coatings (Basel) 2024-01, Vol.14 (1), p.143
Main Authors: Platonov, Roman, Altynnikov, Andrey, Komlev, Andrey, Tumarkin, Andrey, Kozyrev, Andrey
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antennas
Antennas (Electronics)
Barium strontium titanates
Capacitors
Dielectric films
Efficiency
Electronic components industry
Ferroelectric materials
Ferroelectricity
Fiberglass
Leaky waves
Propagation
Prototypes
Prototyping
Radiation
Solid solutions
Substrates
Thin films
Transmission lines
Wireless communication systems
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Summary:This article presents a wide-angle-scanning leaky-wave antenna (LWA) based on a composite right/left-handed (CRLH) transmission line. In contrast to traditional semiconductor elements, thin-film ferroelectric capacitors were implemented in the CRLH unit cells to enable electric beam scanning. The proposed CRLH LWA has a single-layer design without metalized vias and is compatible with PCB and thin-film technologies. To fabricate the CRLH LWA prototype, dielectric material substrates and thin-film ferroelectric capacitors were manufactured, and their characteristics were investigated. Double-sided metalized fluoroplast-4 reinforced with fiberglass with a permittivity of 2.5 was used as a substrate for CRLH LWA prototyping. A solid solution of barium strontium titanate (BaxSr1−xTiO3) with a composition of x=0.3 was used as a ferroelectric material in electrically tunable capacitors. The characteristics of the manufactured ferroelectric thin-film capacitors were measured at a frequency of 1 GHz using the resonance method. The capacitors have a tunability of about two and a quality factor of about 50. The antenna prototype consists of ten units with a total length of 1.25 wavelengths at the operating frequency of close to 2.4 GHz. The experimental results demonstrate that the main beam can be shifted within the range of −40 to 16 degrees and has a gain of up to 3.2 dB. The simple design, low cost, and excellent wide-angle scanning make the proposed CRLH LWA viable in wireless communication systems.
ISSN:2079-6412
2079-6412
DOI:10.3390/coatings14010143