Gain Enhancement of Microstrip Patch

Antenna using Near-Zero Index

Metamaterial (NZIM) Lens

Hemant Suthar, Debdeep Sarkar*, Kushmanda Saurav

and Kumar Vaibhav Srivastava
Department of Electrical Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India
*debdeep1989@gmail.com

(Corresponding Author)

Outline of the Presentation

I.

Near Zero Index Metamaterials (NZIM)

II.

Design of compact NZIM unit cell

III. Gain Enhancement of Microstrip Patch Antenna

with NZIM Lens

C10: Antennas, Paper ID: 168

March 1, 2015

Near Zero Index Metamaterial (NZIM)

NZIM

is a special class of
metamaterial in which refractive
index remains zero over a desired
frequency range

NZIM is capable of converting

diverging wave into planar wave

Enoch, Stefan, et al. "A metamaterial for directive emission." Physical Review Letters 89.21 (2002): 213902.
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Unit Cell : Design and Characterization

Top View

Bottom View

HFSS Model

ax = ay = 4.5 mm, L1 = 4.2 mm, L2 =1.725 mm, L3 =1.2 mm, W1 = 4.3 mm, W2 = 3.5 mm, W = 0.25 mm

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Evolution of the unit cell

H. S. Chen et al, Left-handed materials composed of only S-shaped resonators, Physical Review
E, vol. 70, 057605, 2004.
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March 1, 2015

Design Procedure of the proposed

miniaturized NZIM unit cell: Stage-1

H. S. Chen et al, Left-handed materials composed of only S-shaped resonators, Physical Review
E, vol. 70, 057605, 2004.
X. Chen et al, Robust Method to retrieve the constitutive effective parameters of metamaterials,
Physical Review E, vol. 70, 016608, 2004.
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Design Procedure of the proposed

miniaturized NZIM unit cell: Stage-2

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Design Procedure of the proposed

miniaturized NIM unit cell: Stage-3

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Effect of Design Parameters on Zero

Index Frequency Region

Variation with L3

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Reference Microstrip Patch Antenna

Top View

Side View

Lp = 16.5 mm, Wp = 12.6 mm, Ls = 60

mm, Ws = 50 mm, S1 = 3 mm
Substrate: FR4-Epoxy
(r = 4.4, tan = 0.02)
Thickness = 1.6 mm

10

Bandwidth

Peak Gain

4.25 %

5.6 dBi

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Effect of Design Parameters on Zero

Index Frequency Region (Contd.)

Variation with W2

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Beamwidth of Reference Microstrip

Patch Antenna

E Plane

3D Gain Pattern

H Plane
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900

720
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Patch Antenna with NZIM Lens

3-D View

Side View

Top View

h ~ 0.5patch

J. P. Turpin, Q. Wu, D. H. Werner, B. Martin, M. Bray and E. Lier, Near-Zero-Index Metamaterial Lens
Combined With AMC Metasurface for High-Directivity Low-Profile Antennas, IEEE Transactions on
Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 62, No. 4, pp. 1928-1935, 2014.
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Comparison of Simulated Results

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Beamwidth of Proposed Antenna

H Plane

E Plane

15

Antenna

Reference

900

720

Proposed

580

510

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Fabricated prototypes
Substrate: FR4-Epoxy
(r = 4.2, tan = 0.02)
Thickness = 1.6 mm

Top View

Bottom View

Substrate: FR4-Epoxy
(r = 4.4, tan = 0.02)
Thickness = 0.8 mm

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Antennas, Paper ID: 168
Top
View
Side View

March 1, 2015

Measured Parameters

Antenna

17

Bandwidth Peak Gain

(dBi)

Reference

4.66

5.32

Proposed

5.28

7.43

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2D radiation Pattern
Reference
Antenna

Proposed
Antenna

E Plane
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H Plane
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Measured Beamwidth

E Plane

19

H Plane

Antenna

Reference

860

820

Proposed

500

520

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Conclusion
A compact NZIM unit cell has been proposed.
As compared to a simple mirrored S-shaped unit cell, the proposed unit-cell
exhibits 51.72% reduction in electrical size.
The near-zero index frequency band is tuned to overlap with the operating
band of a WLAN band MPA.
An array of 7 7 such NZIM unit cells is used as superstrate over the MPA.
The simulated and measurement results confirm that the introduction of
superstrate significantly increases the gain of patch antenna and reduces the
HPBW in both E-plane and H-plane.

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