Metal‐loaded slot antenna with flat gain and one‐sided radiation

Abstract

A metal‐loaded double‐layer unidirectional radiation slot antenna with flat gain is proposed for millimeter‐wave (mm‐wave) operations. Our presented antenna is constituted of a slot antenna with metal vias, an inner floating metal, a metal line, and ground patch. With the help of inner metal excited by the coupling of the slot antenna, an additional resonance point around 26 GHz could be obtained and the antenna gain is enhanced. To verify the design, the antenna has been fabricated with the prepreg technology. The whole fabricated size is only 0.62 × 0.62λ0² with a thickness of 0.057λ0 (λ0 is the free‐space wavelength at 26 GHz). The measured impedance bandwidth is from 25.1 to 26.55 GHz. Moreover, the proposed antenna obtains a wide flat gain (5.78 ± 0.48 dBi) within the bandwidth and stable one‐sided radiation patterns. The above characteristics show that the proposed antenna is a competitive choice for mm‐wave systems.