A High-Gain Metallic-via-Loaded Antipodal Vivaldi Antenna for Millimeter-Wave Application

Abstract

This paper presents a miniaturized-structure high-gain antipodal Vivaldi antenna (AVA) operating in the millimeter-wave (mm-wave) band. A gradient-length microstrip-patch-based director is utilized on the flares of the AVA to enhance gain. Additionally, an array of metallic vias is incorporated along the lateral and horizontal edges of the antenna for further gain enhancement and bandwidth extension. Based on the proposed structure, the AVA can achieve a peak gain of 11.9 dBi over a relative bandwidth of 71.24% within 16.5–36.6 GHz as measured, while the electrical dimension is only 1.54 × 2.69 × 0.07 λc3. The measured results show good agreement with the simulated ones. Owning the characteristics of being high-gain and ultra-wideband, and having a compact size, the proposed AVA can be a competitive candidate for future millimeter-wave communication.