Parallel‐plates‐based Dirac Leaky Wave Antennas

Abstract

In this work, the authors experimentally show Dirac Leaky Wave Antennas (DLWAs) at upper microwave frequencies. For the first time, DLWAs are implemented using simple Parallel plate waveguide (PPW) technology, while yielding desirable radiation features and continuous beam scanning through broadside, as well as extremely low profile, with significant ease of fabrication, making them well suited for Ku band applications such as satellite communication, radar and emerging fifth‐generation (5G). A planar Dirac photonic crystal in PPW is shown with a closed bandgap and linear dispersion around broadside. In this work, 1D and 2D PPDLWAs are designed that provide scannable fan and pencil beams, respectively, with a symmetric beamwidth. Phase and attenuation constants are controlled with unit cell dimensions to obtain a directive beam and scanning in a wide range of angles. For the 2D design, an appropriate wideband feeding network is designed that excites the antenna appropriately. The presented PPDLWAs operate with a peak gain of about 13 dB for the fan beam and 22 dB for the pencil beam, in the frequency range from 12 to 16 GHz.

Analytical Study of Dirac Type Dispersion in Simple Periodic Waveguide Structures for Leaky-Wave Applications

“…Periodic LWAs are advantageously able to scan both backward and forward beams w.r.t broadside, but due to the coupling of Bloch modes, they typically suffer from the problem of open-stopband at broadside (leading to lack of radiation at broadside and fluctuation in gain and efficiency while scanning) [7]. The existence of a stopband at broadside in periodic LWAs is due to the contra-directional coupling of two radiating Floquet harmonics as described in [18,28].…”

“…This LWA shows interesting characteristics such as a high gain fan-beam exactly at broadside, wide frequency-based beam steering, and low cross-polarization. Also, in [18] a new approach is presented to generate a scannable pencil beam using an extended parallel-plate-based Dirac PC. In all work presented thus far on DLWAs, even those with SIW, structures require some forms of through or semi-covered holes to achieve all the requirements.…”

A 6–12 GHz wideband low‐noise amplifier GaAs FET design with 0.8‐dB average NF and 25‐dB gain

“…Slave terminals (SSTs) are transceivers that consist of a transmitter (Tx) and a receiver (Rx) and are typically used to broadcast audio, video, or data 2,3 to the master across communication channels (Figure 1B). Receivers in communication systems are responsible for demodulating and processing transmitted radio frequency signal information, 3,4 as well as providing a low-noise figure (NF) and enough amplification for signal reconstruction. 5 Low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) with low-noise performance, in other words, are critical components in these systems.…”