Design and numerical demonstration of a 2D millimeter-wave beam-scanning reflectarray based on liquid crystals and a static driving technique

Abstract

In this paper, the design method for a two-dimensional (2D) beam-scanning reflectarray based on liquid crystals (LCs) and static driving technique in the millimeter-wave band is proposed. The reflectarray is composed of multi-resonant elements which obtain the phase shift by applying the driving voltage on the LC. The LC elements of the reflectarray are controlled by static driving method. In order to reduce the negative impact of the densely distributed LC driving lines on the performance of the reflectarray, a novel LC driving strategy is presented to further reduce the number of driving lines. Subarray partition is employed, and more importantly, the ground plane of the reflectarray is divided into several segments so that about one third part of the driving lines can be transferred from the patch layer to the ground plane layer. A 32 × 30 reflectarray is designed and taken for an example to demonstrate the proposed method. Full wave numerical simulations are conducted, and the results show large beam scanning ranges of the reflectarray over 50° in the plane containing the offset feed and over 40° in the plane perpendicular to the feed plane.

Liquid Crystals for Advanced Smart Devices with Microwave and Millimeter‐Wave Applications: Recent Progress for Next‐Generation Communications

“…Reproduced with permission. [ 122 ] Copyright 2019, IOP Publishing Ltd. b) Self‐regulation of infrared using a LCs mixture doped with push–pull azobenzene for energy‐saving smart windows. Reproduced with permission.…”

Development of Beam Steerable Reflectarray With Liquid Crystal for Both E-Plane and H-Plane

“…The previous design of the LC RA unit mainly used thinline electrodes to connect the patch layer [21]- [25], so these RA can just steer beam in one plane [21]. A solution to achieve beam steer at 2 orthogonal planes is proposed in reference [36], but it needs many bias lines, another scheme is came up to achieve beam shift at E plane and H plane with concept of subarray and the contorl of bias lines [37], which is a significant improvement of LC RA. Base on the idea of bias lines and detialed investigation of distribution of liquid crystal molecules in a three-dimensional environment, this paper proposes a simpler solution to achieve beam steering at both E plane and H plane by discrete ground and cross bias condition, which is more practical in engineering.…”

Design and Fabrication of Reflective Phase Shifter for Two‐Dimensional Terahertz Beam‐Scanning Reflectarray

“…An example of an LC‐based reflectarray in which 2D beam‐scanning is implemented through a new static driving technology has been proposed in 2019 in Ref. [20]. Nevertheless, the complex drive network easily affects the performance of such a reflectarray, which makes it necessary to develop the appropriate driving model to reduce the negative impact of the drive network on the antenna.…”