Wide-Angle Frequency Beam Scanning Antenna Based on the Higher-Order Modes of Spoof Surface Plasmon Polariton
Jun Wang, Lei Zhao, Zhang‐Cheng Hao, Tie Jun Cui
Abstract
A wide-angle frequency beam scanning antenna based on spoof surface plasmon polaritons (SSPPs) is proposed for planar integrated communication circuits. The SSPP-based antenna is constructed by hole arrays etched on the standard 50 Ω coplanar waveguide, which can achieve ultrawide bandwidth and wide-angle beam scanning from backward direction to forward direction as the frequency changes. The radiation mechanisms of the SSPP-based antenna are based on the higher-order modes of the structure, which have been analyzed by the dispersion curves and electric field distributions. The overall width of the proposed SSPP-based antenna is only 0.95λ <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0</sub> (with λ <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0</sub> being the wavelength of the lowest working frequency). The simulated results show that the proposed frequency beam scanning antenna achieves a wide scanning angle of 129° over a frequency range from 11.7 to 50 GHz (for |S <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">11</sub> | <; -10 dB) with an average gain level of 12.38 dBi. The good agreements between the simulated and measured results validate the proposed design.