Dielectric Materials for Compact Dielectric Resonator Antenna Applications

Abstract

Introduction Dielectric resonators using high-permittivity materials were originally developed for microwave circuits, such as filters or oscillators as tuning element [1]. Indeed, in the late nineteen sixties, the development of low-loss ceramic materials opened the way for their use as high-Q elements [2-4]. Then, making use of dielectric materials to create the dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) illustrates the ingenuity of Professor S. A. Long [5], who was the first to propose such a procedure in the early nineteen eighties. Indeed, it introduced the use of a dielectric resonator as an antenna by exciting different modes using multiple feeding mechanisms. During the nineties, emphasis was placed on applying analytical or numerical techniques for determining input impedance, fields inside the resonator and Q-factor [6]. Kishk, Junker, Glisson, Luk, Leung, Mongia, Bhartia, Petosa and so on, have described a significant amount of DRAs' analyses and characterizations [7-18]. Petosa and al. proposed both in literatures and book [6,12] many of the recent advances on DRAs. Current DRA literatures focus on compact designs to address portable wireless applications. Among them, new DRA shapes or hybrid antennas are developed to enhance the antenna impedance bandwidth [13-19] or for multiband antenna applications [20-22]. The first part will address a brief overview of the most common used DRA shapes and structures including both rectangular and cylindrical DRAs. The emphasis will be placed on better understanding what DRAs exactly are and how to develop such an antenna. This part will detail fundamental modes of DRAs, their resonant frequencies, fields inside the resonator and radiation patterns corresponding to these modes. A second part will focus on the relevant dielectric material properties having a significant contribution to achieve better antenna performances. It will detail the kind of materials DRAs can use, which is closely linked to the targeted application. Multiple techniques to miniaturize such an antenna will be presented in the third part, supported by concrete examples. At the same time, everyone will be able to appreciate that dielectric material properties have a major role to play in designing a DRA. It should be noted that the material choice is even more critical when the targeted challenge is the antenna size reduction. Therefore, depending on the intended applications, this part will enable to find the best trade-off between the material choice and its shape. Although some wideband or multiband DRA structures have been introduced in the third part, the fourth and last part will be dedicated to a new method to design a DRA. It will address engineering design data on hybrid modes creation to enhance the bandwidth or develop multiband antennas. This part will include many references to clearly explain this research method while highlighting their contribution to expand the use of DRA in new kind of mobile handheld devices (e.g. new tablets)

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