Wideband and high-directive reflective metasurface-based Fabry–Pérot cavity antennas

Abstract

Abstract In this work, the use of a configuration of a reflective metasurface (MS) layer is employed to design a highly directive wideband Fabry–Pérot cavity (FPC) antenna. With the use of only one MS layer and along with the achieved high directivity, the antenna's wide bandwidth, and antenna low size/cavity thickness profile are all optimized so that they are still competitive which is the main contribution of our work. The highly reflective MS layer is placed as a superstrate of a low-cost FR4 microstrip patch antenna, as the primary radiator, at a height of half-wavelength cavity condition. Thanks to the employed MS layer, most of the power is transmitted and a very small reflected power to the primary patch. The antenna is designed to serve the 28 GHz band of 5G wireless applications. At 28 GHz, the FPC antenna has a good directivity performance, with a peak simulated directive gain of 15.46 dB and measured directive gain is 14.3 dB which is a 9 dB enhancement in directivity compared to a conventional microstrip patch antenna. The antenna has a wide impedance bandwidth of 2.9 GHz which is almost three times the microstrip patch antenna bandwidth. The achieved results are for the same size of FPC antenna whose height is almost half wavelength and its overall size 2.33λ × 2.33λ.