4542 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 59, NO.

12, DECEMBER 2011

Wideband Planar Microwave Lenses Using

Sub-Wavelength Spatial Phase Shifters
Mudar A. Al-Joumayly, Student Member, IEEE, and Nader Behdad, Member, IEEE

Abstract—We present a new technique for designing low-pro-

file planar microwave lenses. The proposed lenses consist of nu-
merous miniature spatial phase shifters distributed over a planar
surface. The topology of each spatial phase shifter (SPS) is based
on the design of a class of bandpass frequency selective surfaces
composed entirely of sub-wavelength, non-resonant periodic struc-
tures. A procedure for designing the proposed lenses and their con-
stituting spatial phase shifters is also presented in the paper. This
design procedure is applied to two different planar lenses oper-
ating at X-band. Each lens is a low-profile structure with an overall
thickness of 0 08 0 and uses sub-wavelength SPSs with dimen-
sions of 0 2 0 0 2 0 , where 0 is the free-space wavelength at
10 GHz. These prototypes are fabricated and experimentally char-
acterized using a free-space measurement system and the results
are reported in the paper. The fabricated prototypes demonstrate Fig. 1. (a) Topology of a conventional double-convex dielectric lens. (b) A
relatively wide bandwidths of approximately 20%. Furthermore, planar microwave lens composed of arrays of transmitting and receiving an-
the lenses demonstrate stable responses when illuminated under tennas connected to each other using transmission lines with variable lengths.
oblique angles of incidence. This feature is of practical importance (c) Topology of the proposed MEFSS-based planar lens.
if these lenses are to be used in beam-scanning antenna applica-
tions.
microwave frequencies are generally bulky, heavy, and expen-
Index Terms—Frequency selective surfaces, lens antennas,
lenses, periodic structures. sive to manufacture. This has limited their use primarily to
millimeter-wave and sub-millimeter-wave frequency bands.
In addition to dielectric lenses, a wide range of other
I. INTRODUCTION techniques have also been used to design lenses that operate
throughout the RF and microwave frequencies [11]–[23]. In
ENSES are used extensively throughout the microwave particular, planar microwave lenses have received considerable
L and millimeter-wave frequency bands in applications
such as imaging [1], radar systems [2], quasi-optical power
attention and have been investigated by several groups of
researchers over the years [3], [6], [13]–[17]. Typically, these
combining [3], [4], quasi-optical measurement systems [5], and types of microwave lenses are designed using planar arrays
high-gain beam-steerable antenna arrays [6], [7]. Dielectric of transmit and receive antennas connected together using a
lenses were among the first structures to be investigated and are phase shifting mechanism as depicted in Fig. 1(b). Different
still used in various antenna and radar applications [8]–[10]. techniques have been used to achieve the required transmis-
Dielectric lenses, similar to the one shown in Fig. 1(a), tend sion phase between the arrays of receiving and transmitting
to operate over relatively wide bandwidths. However, they antennas. Examples include using transmission lines with
suffer from reflection losses caused by mismatch between the variable lengths between the two arrays of antennas [15] or
refractive index of the lens material and that of its surrounding using an array of coupling apertures between them [13]–[17].
environment. Moreover, dielectric lenses that operate at low In [16], two microstrip patch antennas coupled together using
an aperture embedded in their common ground plane form the
basic building block of a flat lens. A similar structure is studied
Manuscript received March 01, 2011; revised May 07, 2011; accepted June in [17], where a resonant aperture (filter) is used to couple the
21, 2011. Date of publication August 22, 2011; date of current version De-
cember 02, 2011. This work was supported in part by a Young Investigator Pro- arrays of receiving and transmitting microstrip patch antennas
gram (YIP) Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Award No. together. However, the relatively large inter-element spacing
FA9550-11-1-0050) and in part by the National Science Foundation (Awards
ECCS-1101146 and ECCS-1052628).
of such a planar array limits its performance under oblique
M. Al-Joumayly was with the Department of Electrical and Computer angles of incidence. As the element size and the inter-element
Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706 USA. spacing increase, the phase responses of the lens’ spatial phase
He is now with TriQuint Semiconductor, Apopka, FL 32703 USA (e-mail:
aljoumayly@wisc.edu).
shifters become more sensitive to any change in the angle of in-
N. Behdad is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, cidence of the electromagnetic (EM) wave [24]. Therefore, the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706 USA. (e-mail: be- phase-delay profile of the lens and its focusing characteristics
hdad@wisc.edu). can change considerably as the angle of incidence changes.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Recently, artificially engineered materials have also been
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2011.2165515 used to design microwave lenses [18]–[20]. In [18], a lens
0018-926X/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE
AL-JOUMAYLY AND BEHDAD: WIDEBAND PLANAR MICROWAVE LENSES USING SUB-WAVELENGTH SPATIAL PHASE SHIFTERS
consisting of stacked parallel metal plates or arrays of parallel
metal wires is reported. This structure behaves as an artificial
dielectric with a permittivity less than one. Other artificially en-
gineered materials, such as complementary split ring resonators
[19] or negative-refractive-index transmission lines [20] have
also been used to design three-dimensional microwave lenses
operating at microwave frequencies. In another approach,
Fresnel zone plates (FZP) are employed as focusing elements to
design a variety of microwave lenses. The classical microwave
FZP lens consists of circular concentric metal rings that lay
over the odd or even Fresnel zones [21], [22].
Frequency selective surfaces (FSSs) have also been used in
the design of planar lenses. In [23], a combination of a Fresnel
zone plate lens and an FSS is employed to achieve a new com-
pound diffractive FZP-FSS lens with enhanced focusing and fre-
quency filtering characteristics. In FSS-based lenses, the phase
shift required for beam collimation is achieved from the phase
response of the FSS’s transfer function. The phase shift that
can be achieved from a bandpass FSS is directly related to the
type and order of its frequency response. Since many planar
lenses require phase shifts in the range of 0 to 360 , FSSs
with higher-order responses are generally required. To achieve
a higher-order filter response from a conventional FSS, multiple
first-order FSSs must be cascaded with a spacing of a quarter-
wavelength between each panel [24]. This increases the overall
thickness of the FSS and enhances the sensitivity of its fre-
quency response to the angle and polarization of incidence of
the EM wave.
Recently, the authors presented a new class of low-profile fre-
quency selective surfaces that are composed entirely of non-res-
onant periodic structures [25], [26]. These structures, which are
referred to as miniaturized element frequency selective surfaces
(MEFSSs), are composed of multiple closely spaced periodic
structures and can provide filter responses of any desired order
[26]. This way, a high-order filter response can be achieved
from a low-profile, light-weight FSS. Additionally, MEFSSs
demonstrate stable phase and amplitude responses as a func-
tion of angle and polarization of the incidence of the EM wave
[25]–[28]. In this paper, we use the generalized MEFSS re-
ported in [26] to design low-profile, planar microwave lenses.
In doing this, we treat the unit cells of a typical MEFSS as spa-
tial phase shifters (SPSs). By populating a planar surface with
SPSs that provide different phase shifts, planar lenses with a de-
sired phase shift profile can be designed as depicted in Fig. 1(c).
Because of their extremely thin profiles and sub-wavelength di-
mensions, the phase responses of the SPSs constituting the lens
is extremely stable as a function of the angle of incidence of
the EM wave. This way, the phase-delay profile provided by
these lenses and their responses remain stable over a relatively
wide angular range. Moreover, these planar lenses can operate
over relatively wide bandwidths. In what follows, we will first
present the principles of operation and the design procedure for
the proposed planar lenses in Section II. In Section III, we dis-
cuss the measurement techniques used to characterize the pro-
posed planar lenses and present the measurement results of two
fabricated prototypes. Finally, in Section IV, we present a few
concluding remarks.
4543
Fig. 2. Phase delay of a spherical wave at the input of the lens aperture (ref-
erenced to the phase at the center of the aperture) and the phase delay, which
must be provided by the lens to achieve a planar wavefront at the output aper-
ture of the lens. The results are calculated for a lens with aperture size of 23.4
2
cm 18.6 cm and focal distance of 30 cm.
II. LENS DESIGN AND PRINCIPLES OF OPERATION
Fig. 1 shows a comparison between a double-convex di-
electric lens, a traditional planar lens composed of arrays of
receiving antennas connected to arrays of transmitting antennas
using transmission lines with variable lengths, and the proposed
MEFSS-based planar lens. Irrespective of the implementation
technique, the planar microwave lenses shown in Fig. 1(b)
and (c) attempt to mimic the transmission phase profile of
the double-convex dielectric lens shown in Fig. 1(a). When
illuminated by a point source located at its focal point, the
double-convex lens converts an incident spherical wavefront at
its input surface to a planar wavefront at its output. For a radi-
ating point source located at the lens’ focal point, the radiated
spherical wave arrives at different points on the lens’ aperture
with different phase delays. In this case, the ray that passes
through the center of the lens experiences the smallest phase
delay in free space. Using this phase delay as a reference, the
excess free-space phase delay that a ray arriving at an arbitrary
point on the aperture acquires can be calculated. Fig. 2 shows
this calculated excess phase delay profile for a lens with an
aperture size of cm having a focal length of
cm. From this curve, the phase delay profile that the lens must
provide to achieve beam collimation can be calculated. This
phase delay changes from zero at the edge of the aperture to
1 at its center, where is
the free space wavenumber, is the free space wavelength,
is the focal length, and is the aperture size of the lens. Fig. 2
also shows the phase delay that the lens must provide at every
point on its aperture to collimate the input spherical wavefront.
In a conventional convex lens (Fig. 1(a)), this phase shift is
provided in a continuous fashion by the lens. In particular, the
surface profiles of the two curved surfaces determine the lens’
phase transmission function. In planar lenses, however, there
is no flexibility in choosing the surface profiles of the input
and output apertures of the lens. Therefore, alternative phase
shifting mechanisms are usually used. In the next two sub-
sections, we discuss a method for achieving the desired phase
1Notice that ( (A=2) + f 0 f ) is the difference between the path length
of a ray that passes through the focal point and the edge of the lens and one that
passes through the lens’ focal point and the center of the aperture.
4544 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 59, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2011
N
Fig. 3. (a) 3D topology of an th-order MEFSS reported in [26]. (b) 2D top
view of the unit cell of a sub-wavelength capacitive patch layer (top) and an
inductive wire grid layer (bottom). The two layers are used as building blocks
N
for the th-order MEFSS. (c) Equivalent transmission line circuit model of the
N th-order MEFSS [26].
shift by synthesizing sub-wavelength spatial phase shifters that
accomplish this task.
A. Miniaturized-Element Frequency Selective Surfaces as
Spatial Phase Shifters
Fig. 3(a) shows the three-dimensional (3-D) topology of a
generalized MEFSS with an th-order bandpass response [26].
The MEFSS is a multi-layered structure composed of a number
of closely spaced metallic layers separated from one another by
very thin dielectric substrates. Each metallic layer is in the form
of a two-dimensional (2-D) periodic arrangement of sub-wave-
length capacitive patches or a 2-D wire grid with sub-wave-
length periodicity. The unit cells of a sub-wavelength capacitive
patch and a wire grid are shown in Fig. 3(b). An th-order band-
pass MEFSS has capacitive layers and inductive layers.
The first and last layers are always composed of sub-wavelength
capacitive patches while the interior layers alternate between ca-
pacitive and inductive surfaces. Fig. 3(c) shows the equivalent
circuit model of this structure. A comprehensive analytical de-
sign and synthesis procedure for this structure is also reported
in [26]. Using this method, by specifying the center frequency
of operation of the MEFSS, , its operational bandwidth, BW,
and its response type and order, all of the element values of the
equivalent circuit model shown in Fig. 3(c) can be determined
and mapped to the geometrical parameters of the MEFSS shown
in Fig. 3(a). Compared to regular FSSs with the same response
type and order, MEFSSs have significantly lower overall thick-
nesses and smaller periodicities [26]. Moreover, they demon-
strate very stable frequency responses as functions of the inci-
dence angle and the polarization of the incident wave [26].
Within its pass band, a bandpass MEFSS allows the signal to
pass with little attenuation. However, the transmitted signal ex-
periences a phase shift, which can be determined by the phase
Fig. 4. Simulated transmission coefficients (magnitude and phase) of three
MEFSSs having second-, third-, and fourth-order bandpass responses. Simula-
tion results are obtained in CST Microwave Studio. As the order of the MEFSS
response increases, the phase of the transmission coefficient changes over a
wider range within the pass band of the MEFSS.
of the MEFSS’s transmission coefficient. Therefore, within its
pass band, a bandpass MEFSS acts as a phase shifting surface
(PSS). The unit cell of such an MEFSS is the smallest building
block constituting the PSS. This way, each unit cell acts as a
spatial phase shifter. SPSs providing different phase shifts can
be used to populate the aperture of a lens and provide the phase
shift profile shown in Fig. 1(c). In an MEFSS, different phase
shifts can be achieved at a single frequency by de-tuning the
center frequency of operation of the MEFSS to control the trans-
mission phase. This can be seen by examining the magnitudes
and phases of the transmission coefficients of several MEFSSs
shown in Fig. 4. Within their pass bands, the transmission phases
of all three MEFSSs change with frequency. The third-order
MEFSS, for example, provides a phase shift of at 9 GHz
and a phase shift of at 11 GHz. If the center frequency
of operation of this MEFSS is tuned, both the magnitude and
the phase responses shift with frequency. Therefore, for a fixed
frequency that falls within the pass band of both structures,
only a change in phase is observed. This method can be used
to achieve MEFSSs that provide different transmission phase
shifts at a single frequency. The maximum phase shift that can
be achieved from an MEFSS depends on the order of its filter
response. As seen from Fig. 4, the higher the order of the re-
sponse is, the larger the phase shift range will be. For example,
the second-order MEFSS whose response is shown in Fig. 4
provides a maximum phase variation of 180 within its pass
band. This phase shift range increases to 270 and 360 for the
third-order and fourth-order MEFSSs, respectively. Therefore,
the desired phase shift profile of a planar lens determined from
its aperture size, , and focal distance, , determines the order
of the MEFSSs that need to be used to synthesize the required
spatial phase shifters.
B. Lens Design Procedure
Let’s assume that the planar microwave lens, shown in Fig. 5,
is located in the - plane and has a rectangular aperture with
aperture dimensions of and . A point source located at the
lens’ focal point at radiates a spher-
ical wavefront that impinges upon the surface of the lens and is
transformed to a planar wavefront at the output aperture. At the
AL-JOUMAYLY AND BEHDAD: WIDEBAND PLANAR MICROWAVE LENSES USING SUB-WAVELENGTH SPATIAL PHASE SHIFTERS 4545

Fig. 6. Topology of the two lens prototypes described in Section II. The lens
aperture is divided into a number of concentric zones populated with identical
spatial phase shifters (a) first prototype with five concentric zones. (b) Second
prototype with ten zones.

Fig. 5. Top view of the proposed planar MEFSS-based lens. A spherical wave
is launched from a point source located at the focal point of the lens, (x = Having determined the transmission phase for each zone, the
0
0; y = 0; z = f ). To transform this input spherical wavefront to an output lens design procedure can be summarized as follows.
planar one, k r + 8(x; y ) must be a constant for every point on the aperture of
the lens. 8(x; y ) is the phase delay, which is provided by the lens. 1) Select the desired center frequency of operation of the lens,
.
2) Select the desired aperture shape and its dimensions. For a
lens’ input surface, the input spherical wave can be expressed rectangular aperture, choose appropriate and values
as: and the focal distance, . Notice that these parameters can
be chosen at the discretion of the designer.
3) Divide the lens aperture into concentric discrete regions
(1) or zones, where is an arbitrary positive integer.
where is the amplitude of the electric field of 4) Determine the transmission phase delay profile of the lens
the incident spherical wave on the plane and by calculating the phase delay required from SPSs pop-
is the distance between an arbitrary point ulating each zone using (4). All calculations should be
on the lens’ aperture specified by its coordinates performed at the desired center frequency of operation of
and the focal point of the lens . The .
electric field distribution at the output aperture of the lens can 5) Depending on the maximum variation of over the
be expressed as: lens’ aperture, determine the order of the MEFSS needed
to implement the spatial phase shifters. For example, Fig. 4
(2) shows that a fourth-order frequency response would be suf-
ficient if a phase variation of more than 270 but less than
where is the amplitude of the electric field over 360 is needed.
the output aperture of the lens and is the phase delay 6) Use the synthesis procedure described in [26] to design the
provided by the spatial phase shifters of the lens at point . spatial phase shifter that populates the central zone of the
To ensure that the output aperture of the lens represents an lens. This SPS should provide a phase delay larger than
equiphase surface, the term must be a constant. at the desired frequency of oper-
Consequently, can be calculated as: ation, . From the phase response of this SPS at ,
the value of can be determined. is the difference
(3) between the actual phase delay provided by the SPS and
.
where is a positive constant that represents a constant phase 7) Use the synthesis procedure described in [26] to de-
delay added to the response of every SPS on the aperture of the sign the spatial phase shifters that populate zone
lens. Let’s assume that the lens’ aperture is divided into con- . These SPSs should provide
centric zones populated with spatial phase shifters of the same the required phase shift calculated from (4). In
type. If the coordinates of a point located at the center of zone doing this, the MEFSS designed for Zone 0 can be used as
are given by (where ), a starting point and its frequency response can be shifted
then the desired transmission phase required from SPSs that towards higher frequencies. This decreases the phase shift
populate this zone can be calculated from: provided by the structure at .
We applied the aforementioned procedure to design two
planar lens prototypes shown in Fig. 6. The lenses are designed
to operate at 10 GHz and both have focal lengths of
(4) cm and aperture dimensions of cm and
4546 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 59, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2011

TABLE I
PHYSICAL AND ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES OF THE SPATIAL PHASE SHIFTERS THAT POPULATE EACH ZONE OF THE FIRST PROTOTYPE. INSERTION LOSS VALUES ARE
IN dB AND ALL PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS ARE IN m. FOR ALL OF THESE DESIGNS, w w= =24
: mm AND h h = h h= =
: mm =05

TABLE II
PHYSICAL AND ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES OF THE SPATIAL PHASE SHIFTERS THAT POPULATE EACH ZONE OF THE SECOND LENS PROTOTYPE. INSERTION LOSS
VALUES ARE IN dB AND ALL PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS ARE IN m. FOR ALL OF THESE DESIGNS, w w = =24
: mm AND h h h = h = : mm = =05

cm. With these specifications, the maximum phase variation

required over the aperture of the lens is 169 along the
direction and 264 along the direction. The desired phase
profile of the lens, along the axis is shown in Fig. 2. As can
be seen from Fig. 4, this phase shift range can be achieved from
a third-order MEFSS. The unit cell of a third-order MEFSS
consists of three capacitive and two inductive layers separated
from one another by very thin dielectric substrates. Typical
substrate thicknesses are approximately , where is the
free space wavelength at [26].
The spatial phase shifters used in this lens are designed based
on the assumption that they will operate in an infinite two-di-
mensional periodic structure. This assumption is also used in
the design of reflectarrays and is referred to as the local peri-
odicity condition [29]. However, the proposed lens is inherently
non-periodic, since it uses a number of different SPSs over its
aperture. Therefore, the frequency responses of the SPSs used
in the design of the lens are expected to change when placed
in this operational environment. In our first proof-of-concept
experiments, we considered two lens prototypes with different
number of zones. In the first prototype, the lens’ aperture is di-
vided into five discrete zones, as shown in Fig. 6(a) and in the
second prototype the aperture is divided into 10 zones as seen in
Fig. 6(b). Fig. 7 shows the detailed layout of the two lens proto-
types and the arrangement of the spatial phase shifters that popu-
late different zones of each lens. Each square cell in these figures
represents one SPS with physical dimensions of 6.1 mm 6.1
mm. The numbers on each rectangular cell represent the zone
in which the SPS is located. For a lens with only a few discrete
zones, the structure can be considered to be locally periodic in
each zone. Therefore, the phase responses of SPSs that popu-
late each zone are expected to be closer to the ideal case (in-
finite periodic structure). Such a lens, however, does not pro-
vide a smooth phase delay profile over its aperture. On the other
Fig. 7. Layouts of the two lens prototypes designed using the proposed design
procedure discussed in Section II.B. The lens aperture is discretized into small
area pixels. Each pixel is occupied by a spatial phase shifter with physical di-
2
mensions of 6.1 mm 6.1 mm designed using the design procedures discussed
in Section II.B. (a) Layout of the first prototype, where the lens aperture is di-
vided into five discrete zones. The zones are numbered from 0–4. The specifi-
cations of the spatial phase shifters that populate each zone are listed in Table I.
(b) Layout of the second prototype, where the lens aperture is divided into ten
discrete zones. The zones are numbered from 0–9. The specifications of the spa-
tial phase shifters that populate each zone are listed in Table II.
hand, a lens with a higher number of zones can provide a smooth
phase variation over its aperture. However, since fewer SPSs of
the same type are used within each zone, the uncertainty in their
actual frequency response could be higher. The two lens proto-
types shown in Fig. 7(a) and (b) are representative examples of
these two scenarios and were chosen to experimentally study
these potential tradeoffs.
For each lens, following the aforementioned design proce-
dure, the required transmission phase shift is first calculated for
each zone. Then, the spatial phase shifter (MEFSS unit cell) that
populates Zone 0 of the lens (Z0-SPS) is designed. The struc-
ture is then simulated using full-wave EM simulations in CST
Microwave Studio. In doing this, the MEFSS unit cell is sim-
ulated as part of an infinite periodic structure by placing it in-
side a waveguide with periodic boundary condition (PBC) walls.
AL-JOUMAYLY AND BEHDAD: WIDEBAND PLANAR MICROWAVE LENSES USING SUB-WAVELENGTH SPATIAL PHASE SHIFTERS 4547

The structure is then excited by a plane wave and the magni-

tude and phase of its transmission coefficient are calculated.
The physical and geometrical dimensions of the Z0-SPS are
used as a reference for designing the SPSs that populate other
zones of the lens. Since the SPSs of each zone must have dif-
ferent relative transmission phase, they are designed by slightly
de-tuning the frequency response of the Z0-SPS. Doing this
shifts both the magnitude and the phase of the transfer func-
tion of the MEFSS response in frequency. Therefore, for a given
fixed frequency, a relative phase shift can be achieved. In a
third-order MEFSS, this de-tuning can be achieved by changing
the size of the three capacitive patch layers without changing
the inductive layers. This facilitates the design of the lens by re-
ducing the number of variables that must be changed from one
SPS to the other. Having achieved the desired relative transmis-
sion phases, the spatial phase shifters are then populated over
their corresponding zones.
In general, the frequency and phase responses of each SPS
are functions of angle and the polarization of incidence of the
EM wave. In designing SPSs that populate each zone of the lens,
these effects are taken into account. The SPSs designed for the
two lens prototypes shown in Fig. 7 provide almost identical
phase shifts (with less than 2 difference) under oblique inci-
dence angles for the transverse electric (TE) and transverse mag-
netic (TM) polarizations. This is mostly due to the fact that all Fig. 8. Frequency responses of the spatial phase shifters that populate the lens
SPSs of these lenses operate over relatively small incidence an- aperture of (a) first prototype and (b) second prototype. The spatial phase shifters
gles (20 or less). Table I and II show the physical and geomet- are designed using the procedure described in Section II.
rical parameters of SPSs, which populate different zones of each
lens. In all of these designs, the desired response is achieved by
only changing the dimensions of the three capacitive patches of
a third-order MEFSS ( , and in Fig. 3) while keeping
the dimensions of the two inductive grids the same ( and
in Fig. 3). Fig. 8(a) and (b) show the magnitude and phase of the
transmission coefficients of the spatial phase shifters that pop-
ulate different zones of the two lens prototypes. The frequency
ranges where the magnitudes of the responses overlap are high-
lighted in both figures. The overlap region spans a fractional
bandwidth of 10% and 8% for the first and second prototypes
respectively. This overlap range can be considered as a lower
bound for the bandwidth of the lens.
Fig. 9. Photograph of the fabricated lens prototype that consists of ten zones. In
this figure, only one of the five metallic layers that constitute the lens is visible
(the first capacitive layer). Notice that the sizes of the capacitive patches on the
III. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION layer decrease as we move away from the center of the lens.

The two lens prototypes discussed in the previous section

were fabricated using standard PCB fabrication techniques.
Both prototypes use four 0.508-mm-thick dielectric substrates
(RO4003C from Rogers Corporation). Different metal layers
are patterned on one or both sides of each substrate and the sub-
strates are bonded together using three 0.1-mm-thick bonding
films (RO4450B from Rogers Corporation). The overall thick-
ness of each lens, inclusive of the bonding films, is 2.3 mm or
equivalently , where is the free space wavelength at
10 GHz. The dimensions of the spatial phase shifters are 6.1
mm 6.1 mm or equivalently . Fig. 9 shows the
photograph of the fabricated prototype whose layout is shown
in Fig. 7(b).
A. Measurement System
To characterize the two fabricated prototypes, two different
types of measurements are carried out using the measurement
setup shown in Fig. 10. The measurement setup consists of a
large metallic screen with dimensions of 1.2 m 1.0 m. The
screen has an opening with dimensions of 19 cm 24 cm at
its center to accommodate the fabricated lens prototypes. An
X-band horn antenna with aperture dimensions of 7.5 cm 9
cm is placed 120 cm away from the test fixture and radiates
a vertically polarized EM wave to illuminate the lens. At the
other side of the lens, a probe is used to measure the received
signal. The probe is also vertically polarized and is in the form
4548 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 59, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2011
Fig. 10. (a) Perspective view of the measurement setup used to experimentally
characterize the performance of the two fabricated lens prototypes. (b) In a set
of measurements, the lens is excited with a plane wave and a receiving probe
is swept in a rectangular grid in the vicinity of its focal point (x = 0; y =
0
0; z = f ) to characterize its focusing properties as a function of frequency.
2
The measurement grid’s area is 8 cm 8 cm and the resolution is 1 cm. (c) In
another set of measurements, the lens is illuminated with plane waves arriving
from various incidence angles and the received power pattern on the focal arc of
the lens is measured. Here, a probe is swept over the focal arc with 2 increments
to measure the received power.
of an open-ended, semi-rigid coaxial cable with its center con-
ductor extended by 10 mm. Both the transmitting antenna and
the receiving probe are connected to a vector network analyzer.
Fig. 10(b) shows a top view of the measurement system and the
scenario used for the first series of measurements. In this case,
the fixture that holds the receiving probe is swept over a mea-
surement grid with dimensions of 8 cm 8 cm in the - plane
with 1 cm increments in the and directions. The measure-
ment grid is centered at the expected focal point of the lens. The
measurement of the fabricated lens prototypes are conducted in
two steps. For each grid point, the transmission response of the
fixture without the lens is measured first. Then, the transmission
response of the system with the presence of the lens is mea-
sured. By normalizing the latter measured values to the former
one, the focusing gain of the lens at each grid point can be cal-
culated. These measurements are then repeated for every point
in the 8 cm 8 cm grid to obtain a two-dimensional plot of the
focusing gain of the lens in the vicinity of its expected focal
point cm). This measurement is car-
ried out for both fabricated prototypes at different frequencies
across the X-band. In the second series of measurements, we
examined the performance of the fabricated prototypes under
oblique incidence angles. This is done by illuminating the lens
with a plane wave from various incidence angles ranging from
normal to 60 and measuring the field distribution over the focal
arc of the lens using the measurement setup shown in Fig. 10(c).
Here, the receiving probe is mounted on a rotating arm with its
axis of rotation at the center of the lens. The length of the arm
can be adjusted as desired. The receiving probe is swept over
the focal arc with 2 increments and the received power is mea-
sured.
B. Measurement Results
Fig. 11 shows the focusing gain of the first fabricated pro-
totype measured in the frequency range of 8–12 GHz with 0.5
GHz increments. At each frequency, the location where the max-
imum value of the focusing gain is achieved is indicated with
a cross symbol. At 10 GHz, a maximum focusing gain of
9.6 dB is achieved at cm), which is
2 cm away from the expected focal point of the lens. This can
be attributed to the difference between the actual and simulated
responses of the SPSs, numerical errors in full-wave simula-
tions, and fabrication tolerances. Further examination of Fig. 11
reveals that at frequencies below 10 GHz, the focal point2 is
located closer to the lens and it moves away from the lens as
frequency is increased. This frequency-dependent movement of
the focal point can be explained using the Fermat’s principle. It
states that the path taken between two points by a ray of light is
the path that can be traversed in the least time. In the context of
a focusing system, such as a reflectarray or a microwave lens,
Fermat’s principle requires that the net time delay acquired by
any ray propagating from the focal point to the aperture must be
the same. Therefore, to achieve a frequency-independent focal
point, the spatial phase shifters of a planar lens (or a reflectarray)
must act as true-time-delay (TTD) units that provide different
time delay values based on their position of the lens’ aperture
[30]. In frequency domain, a constant time delay corresponds to
a phase response that changes linearly with frequency. There-
fore, the phase responses of different time-delay units that pop-
ulate the aperture will be linear functions of frequency with dif-
ferent slopes. As can be seen from Fig. 8(a) and (b), the phase
responses of different SPSs used in the two lens prototypes can
roughly be approximated with linear functions of frequency.
However, all of these linear functions have approximately the
same slope. This frequency-dependent focal point movement
is not unique to this lens and is observed in any non-TTD mi-
crowave lens or reflectarray. Nonetheless, as is observed from
Fig. 11, the focusing properties of the lens remain within ac-
ceptable margins in the vicinity of the desired frequency of op-
eration.
The same measurement is also conducted to characterize the
response of the second prototype. Fig. 12 shows the measured
focusing gain of the second lens prototype over the same 8
cm 8 cm rectangular grid in the frequency range of 8 GHz
to 12 GHz with 0.5 GHz increments. Fig. 12(e) shows that a
maximum focusing gain of 10 dB is achieved at
cm) at 10 GHz, which is 1 cm away from the
expected focal point of the lens. The slight increase in the fo-
cusing gain is attributed to the better approximation of the de-
sired phase delay profile across the lens aperture compared to
that of the first prototype. Similar to the previous case, a fre-
quency-dependent movement of the focal point is also observed
in this prototype. Fig. 13 shows the measured focusing gains
2Defined as the location where the focusing gain attains its maximum value.
AL-JOUMAYLY AND BEHDAD: WIDEBAND PLANAR MICROWAVE LENSES USING SUB-WAVELENGTH SPATIAL PHASE SHIFTERS
Fig. 11. Measured focusing gain of the first fabricated planar lens prototype
(with five zones) in a rectangular grid in the vicinity of its expected focal point
(x =0 cm, y =0 cm, z = 030 cm). In all of the figures, the horizontal axis is
the x axis with units of [cm] and the vertical axis is the z axis with units of [cm].
The color bar values are in dB. The x marker in all of these figures represents
the exact coordinate where the focusing gain maxima occur. (a) 8.0 GHz, (b)
8.5 GHz, (c) 9.0 GHz, (d) 9.5 GHz, (e) 10.0 GHz, (f) 10.5 GHz, (g) 11.0 GHz,
(h) 11.5 GHz, and (i) 12.0 GHz.
of the two prototypes, at the expected focal point of the lens
cm), as a function of frequency. As
can be seen, the gain of the first prototype does not vary by more
than 3 dB in the frequency range of 9.4–11.4 GHz, which is
4549
Fig. 12. Measured focusing gain of the second fabricated planar lens prototype
(with ten zones) in a rectangular grid in the vicinity of its expected focal point
(x =0 cm, y =0 cm, z = 030 cm). In all of the figures, the horizontal axis is
the x axis with units of [cm] and the vertical axis is the z axis with units of [cm].
The color bar values are in dB. The x marker in all of these figures represents
the exact coordinate where the focusing gain maxima occur. (a) 8.0 GHz, (b)
8.5 GHz, (c) 9.0 GHz, (d) 9.5 GHz, (e) 10.0 GHz, (f) 10.5 GHz, (g) 11.0 GHz,
(h) 11.5 GHz, and (i) 12.0 GHz.
equivalent to a fractional bandwidth of 19.2%. For the second
prototype, this bandwidth is extended to 20% (9.4–11.5 GHz).
The electrical dimensions of the fabricated lens prototypes
are relatively large and the structures have very small minimum
features that gradually change over their apertures. For example,
4550
Fig. 13. Calculated and measured focusing gains of the two lens prototypes at
=0
their expected focal point (x cm, y =0 cm, z = 030 cm) as a function
of frequency. The 3 dB gain bandwidths of the two prototypes are respectively
19.2% and 20% for the first and second prototypes.
the gaps between the capacitive patches of the lens shown in
Fig. 9 have dimensions of 150 m at the center of the aperture
and gradually increase to 300 m at its edges. Modeling this
structure using full-wave numerical simulations requires using
a very dense grid system that can resolve the small variations
in the physical dimensions of the structure from one SPS to the
other (see the dimensions reported in Tables I and II). More-
over, the overall electrical dimensions of the structure are sig-
nificantly larger than the minimum feature of a given SPS. Con-
sequently, conducting a full-wave EM simulation of these pro-
totypes requires significant computational resources and will be
very time consuming. A simple alternative method to model the
proposed lens is to consider it as a two-dimensional antenna
array with an element spacing of , where is the physical
size of each spatial phase shifter of the lens (6.1 mm). Consid-
ering each element of this array to be an electrically-small Her-
tizan dipole with a given amplitude and phase, one can easily
calculate the overall array gain of this structure and evaluate it in
the vicinity of its expected focal point. The amplitude and phase
of each radiating element of this array can be determined from
the simulated values of insertion loss and transmission phase of
each SPS provided in Tables I and II. This process is carried
out for both lens prototypes and figures similar to Figs. 11 and
12 are generated. To keep this article concise, these figures are
not shown here. However, the same frequency-dependent focal
point movement is observed in both cases. More importantly,
the focusing gain calculated through this procedure is found to
be very close to the measured values for both prototypes. The
calculated focusing gains, at cm),
are shown in Fig. 13 along with the measured ones. As can be
seen the calculated results match very well with the measured
ones over the entire frequency band of operation of the lens.
The small differences observed between the calculated and mea-
sured values of the focusing gain can be attributed to the Ohmic
losses of the lens and the errors introduced by the local period-
icity assumption described before.
The performance of the two fabricated prototypes are also
characterized under oblique incidence angles. Each lens is il-
luminated with vertically-polarized plane waves with incidence
angles of 0 , 15 , 30 , 45 , and 60 in the - plane and the
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 59, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2011
Fig. 14. Received power pattern on the focal arc of the first fabricated prototype
(with five zones) when excited with plane waves arriving from various incidence
angles. (a) Calculated. (b) Measured. All results are reported at 10 GHz.
received power pattern on the focal arc is measured. Fig. 14(a)
and (b) show respectively the simulated and measured power
patterns on the focal arc of the first lens prototype. Fig. 15(a)
and (b) show the same results for the second prototype. For
each lens, the incident power density is maintained for all in-
cidence angles. All measured power values are normalized to
the maximum measured value, which occurs at the focal point
for normal incidence. Therefore, in these figures, 0 dB refers
to the power level received on the focal point of the lens when
it is excited with a normally incident plane wave. These simu-
lated and measured results show the expected and actual perfor-
mance of the lens response under oblique incidence angles. As
the angle of incidence changes, the power pattern on the focal
arc is steered by an angle equal to that of the incident angle
and its peak value decreases. For incidence angles up to 45 ,
however, this decrease is relatively small (1.3 dB for first pro-
totype and 1.6 dB for second prototype at 45 ). Beyond this
angle, however, the response of the lens starts to deteriorate
quite rapidly and at 60 the maximum value of the measured
power pattern of the first and second prototypes are reduced re-
spectively by 7.8 dB and 7.1 dB compared to the peak values
measured for normal incidence. Nonetheless, the measured re-
sults shown in Figs. 14(b) and 15(b) demonstrate a good per-
formance for incidence angles up to 45 for both prototypes.
Additionally, comparison of the calculated results with the mea-
sured ones shows a relatively good agreement between the two
AL-JOUMAYLY AND BEHDAD: WIDEBAND PLANAR MICROWAVE LENSES USING SUB-WAVELENGTH SPATIAL PHASE SHIFTERS 4551

zones and thus providing only a rough approximation of the

ideal phase profile. In the second prototype, the lens aperture
is divided into ten zones and a smoother phase variation over
the aperture is obtained. Both prototypes were fabricated and
experimentally characterized using a free-space measurement
setup. The two prototypes operate over a relatively wide band
of operation with fractional bandwidths of respectively 19.2%
and 20%. Additionally, under oblique angles of incidence,
both prototypes demonstrate a good performance up to 45 .
As a simple analysis technique, the two lenses were treated as
two-dimensional antenna arrays composed of Hertzian dipole
radiators and the expected performance of the lenses were also
calculated. For both prototypes, this expected performance
was found to be very close to the measurement results. This
suggests that the responses of the spatial phase shifters of the
lenses do not change significantly, from their ideal responses,
when placed in this non-periodic environment. In general,
the performance of the second prototype, which provides a
smoother phase variation, is found to be better than that of the
first one. This suggests that increasing the number of discrete
phase shifting zones is advantageous in designing this type of
lens.

Fig. 15. Received power pattern on the focal arc of the second fabricated pro-
totype (having ten zones) when excited with plane waves arriving from various
incidence angles. (a) Calculated. (b) Measured. All results are reported at 10
GHz.
despite the simplified method used to model the structure. Com-
paring the measurements shown in Figs. 14 and 15 reveals that
the beam-width of the power pattern of the second prototype is
narrower than that of the first one. Additionally, the performance
of the second prototype at oblique angles of incidence is slightly
better than that of the first one. These effects may be attributed to
the smoother phase delay profile across the aperture of this pro-
totype. This indicates that the performance of this type of lens
can potentially be further enhanced by increasing the number of
zones. In the limiting case, the width of each zone can be made
as narrow as that of one spatial phase shifter (6.1 mm in this
case).
IV. CONCLUSION
A new technique for designing low-profile planar microwave
lenses is introduced in this paper. The proposed lenses use the
unit cells of suitably designed miniaturized element frequency
selective surfaces as their spatial phase shifters. A procedure
for designing such planar lenses was also presented. The lens
design procedure is based on designing each spatial phase
shifter of the lens by treating it as part of an infinite 2-D
periodic structure. Two prototypes that approximate the phase
profile of a conventional convex dielectric lens were designed
following this procedure. The first prototype accomplishes this
by dividing the aperture of the lens into five phase-shifting
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Mudar Al-Joumayly (S’11) received the B.S. de-
gree in electrical engineering from Mutah University,
Jordan, in 2003, the M.S. degree in computer engi-
neering from the New York Institute of Technology,
Jordan, in 2005, the M.S. degree in electrical engi-
neering from University of Central Florida, Orlando,
in 2009, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engi-
neering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
in 2011.
From 2006 to 2009, he worked as a Research
Assistant in the Antennas, RF, and Microwave Inte-
grated Systems (ARMI) Laboratory, University of Central Florida, and from
2009 to 2011, as a Research Assistant in the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Applied Electromagnetics Lab. He is currently a Development Engineer at
TriQuint Semiconductor, Apopka, FL. His research interests include antenna
miniaturization, frequency selective surfaces, phased array antennas, mi-
crowave filters, and bulk acoustic wave devices.
Dr. Al-Joumayly received the third prize in the Best Student Paper Competi-
tion at the Antenna Applications Symposium in Sep. 2010.
Nader Behdad (M’06) received the B.S. degree
in electrical engineering from Sharif University of
Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2000 and the M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from
University of Michigan—Ann Arbor in 2003 and
2006, respectively.
Currently, he is an Assistant Professor in the Elec-
trical and Computer Engineering Department, Uni-
versity of Wisconsin-Madison. From 2006 to 2008,
he was as an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Uni-
versity of Central Florida, Orlando. His research expertise is in the area of ap-
plied electromagnetics. In particular, his research interests span the fields of
electrically small antennas, biomimetics and biologically inspired systems in
electromagnetics, periodic structures, passive high-power microwave devices,
frequency selective surfaces, and phased array antennas.
Dr. Behdad is the recipient of the 2011 CAREER award from the National
Science Foundation, the 2011 Young Investigator Award from Air Force Office
of Scientific Research, and the 2011 Young Investigator Award from the Office
of Naval Research. He received the Office of Naval Research Senior Faculty
Fellowship in 2009, the Young Scientist Award from the International Union of
Radio Science (URSI) in 2008, the Horace H. Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship
from the University of Michigan in 2005–2006, the best paper awards in the An-
tenna Applications Symposium in Sep. 2003, and the second prize in the paper
competition of the USNC/URSI National Radio Science Meeting, Boulder, CO,
in January 2004. His graduate students were the recipients of the first and third
place awards in the student paper competition of Antenna Applications Sym-
posium respectively in 2008 and 2010. He is currently serving as an Associate
Editor for IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters and the Co-Chair of
the technical program committee of the 2012 IEEE International Symposium on
Antennas and Propagation and USNC/URSI National Radio Science Meeting.