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Compact Multi-mode Monopole Antenna for Met-
al-Rimmed Mobile Phones
Yaohui Yang, Zhiqin Zhao, Senior Member, IEEE, Wei Yang, Zaiping Nie, Fellow, IEEE and
Qing-Huo Liu, Fellow, IEEE
 body (including bezel and chassis), especially for lower band
Abstract—A Compact multi-mode monopole antenna for hep-
ta-band metal-rimmed smartphones is proposed. The metal bezel
is kept unbroken and no lumped element is needed. To cover the
low band, the bezel mode is excited by a capacitive coupling ver-
tical plate, and a bandwidth enhancement technique is introduced
for this mode. For the high band, printed multiple branches on
both sides of substrate are well-designed to obtain multiple modes
to cover a wide band. With the proposed structure, the frequency
bands can be widened by tuning and optimization. The new-type
monopole occupies an area of 60 × 5 × 5 mm3 on a 120 × 60 mm2
system board, which has a narrow ground clearance and a low
profile. A prototype is fabricated and measured to validate the
proposed design. Measured results show that the proposed an-
tenna has two impedance bands with S11 < -6 dB, i.e., 23% for the
low band (0.76-0.96 GHz) and 57% for the high band (1.51-2.72
GHz). The proposed monopole antenna is capable of covering the
GSM/DCS/PCS/UMTS and LTE2300/2500 bands for modern
metal-rimmed mobile phone applications.
Index terms—multiple mode, monopole, ultra-slim smartphone,
WWAN/LTE antenna, metal frame.
 impacts on antenna’s performances.
I. INTRODUCTION
M odern smartphones are developing towards the trends of
multi-functionality and miniaturization. It is a challenge
to accomplish antenna designs in a limited narrow space,
simultaneously supporting multiple wireless communication
services [1]. On the other hand, metal-rimmed smartphones
have become very popular because of mechanical strength and
aesthetic appearance. However, the surrounding metallic ob-
jects greatly affect the performances of antennas, such as
bandwidth and radiation efficiency. Undesired induced elec-
tromagnetic coupling increases the difficulty of mobile antenna
designs, especially for metal-rimmed smartphones.
A lot of efforts have been delivered for bandwidth en-
hancement to meet the requirement of Long Term Evolution
(LTE) and Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) operations.
For mobile antennas, resonant modes depend on the whole
This work was supported by the Research Fund of Complicated Electro-
magnetic Environment Key Lab.（No. 20150210XYK), and the Research Fund
of Radio Wave Environment and Modeling Technology Key Lab. (No.
201500016).
Yaohui Yang, Zhiqin Zhao*, Wei Yang, and Zaiping Nie are with the school
of Electronic Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of
China, Chengdu, Sichuan 611731, P. R. China (corresponding author Zhiqin
Zhao with email: zqzhao@ uestc.edu.cn).
Qing-Huo Liu is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA(e-mail: qhliu@
ee.duke.edu)
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(below 1 GHz). However, the chassis is usually not permitted to
be slotted. Meanwhile, modifications on the bezel will deface
the structure and reduce the strength. Furthermore, only a nar-
row ground clearance is reserved for antenna designs.
Monopole and loop antennas are two good candidates be-
cause they are easy to implement multiple resonant modes
[2-11]. By merging multiple modes, the requirements on both
narrow ground clearance and multi-band operations can be met.
Antennas in [2-6] are of loop type. [5] and [6] use the inherent
multi-mode characteristics of loop antennas for wideband
covering. Monopole antennas show more design freedom with
the capacity of multiple resonant characteristics [7-11]. A
planar antenna covering the hepta-band is proposed in [8], with
a small ground clearance of 60  8 mm2. In [9] an octa-band
antenna is proposed with a ground clearance of 80  8 mm2.
The bandwidth is enhanced without much extra space. Alt-
hough wide band can be obtained for hepta-band or octa-band
coverage with only a small no ground area, none of the work in
[2-11] takes the metal bezel into consideration which has great
For metal-rimmed smartphones, the interference of the metal
bezel is hard to be eliminated because the overall size is small
(even no more than /2 for the 900-MHz band). An efficient
solution is to utilize the metal bezel as part of radiating element
[12-16]. Recently, the gap between the metal rim and the sys-
tem ground is utilized to form a dual-loop antenna in [12]. It
provides wide bands for the hepta-band WWAN/LTE opera-
tions (824-960/1710-2690 MHz), and the bezel is complete
without any modification. However, two no-ground portions
are needed, giving rise to a relatively larger area of 70 ×15 mm2,
compared with those without metal-rim in [2-11]. This method
is also adopted in [13-14], covering the same operation bands.
By carefully designing the exciting strips, the ground clearance
is reduced to 70 ×8 mm2 [13] and 45 ×5 mm2 [14], respectively.
But a drawback is that cutting slots are needed on the metal
rims, which damages the metallic strength and the fine ap-
pearance. In a recent article [16], the unbroken floating bezel
mode is analyzed by using the theory of characteristic modes
(TCM). A folded monopole is designed to excite multiple
modes, occupying a small area of 60 ×7 mm2. The bezel is kept
unbroken without slots or lumped elements, but the upper band
is not wide enough to cover the 1710-2690 MHz band.
In this paper, a compact multi-mode monopole antenna is
proposed for unbroken metal-rimmed mobile phones, provid-
ing hepta-band WWAN/LTE operations. The antenna occupies
a small ground clearance of 60 × 5 mm2 with a low profile of
5mm. It has simple structure and is easy to fabricate without
any lumped elements. A vertical metal plate is used to excite
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the bezel mode for the low band, and the bandwidth is increased
by generating an adjacent resonant mode using capacitive
coupling loading method. Folded strips with multiple branches
on both sides of the substrate are well-designed and optimized
for the high band operations. To reduce the coupling between
the low and high band, the vertical plate is modified by cutting
a trapezoidal slot in the vertical plane and bending on the top
edge. An additional metallic strip is introduced for bandwidth
enhancement.
The reminder of the paper is organized as follows. The con-
figuration of the proposed antenna is described in Sec. II. In Sec.
III, the design process is introduced and the working principles
are analyzed. In Sec. IV, a prototype of the antenna is fabricated
and measured. The antenna performances are given and ana-
lyzed. Conclusions are drawn in the final section.

II. ANTENNA CONFIGURATION

The geometry of the proposed antenna with the system board
and floating frame is illustrated in Fig. 1. Fig. 1(a) shows the
3-dimensional (3-D) view. The system printed circuit board (a)
(PCB) is a 0.8-mm-thick single-sided FR-4 substrate (dielectric
constant of 4.4 and loss tangent of 0.02), with a dimension of
120 × 60 mm2. The PCB is embraced by a floating copper
frame (height of 5mm and thickness of 0.2 mm) with a uniform
gap of G = 3 mm. There is a ground clearance with a width of 5
mm at the bottom edge of the PCB for antenna part. A 50-Ω
coaxial port is connected with a microstrip line to feed the
antenna. The antenna is composed of printed driven strips with
multiple branches and a 3-D folded copper plate, with a total
volume of 60 × 5 × 5 mm3.
Detailed configurations of the proposed antenna are depicted
in Figs. 1(b) and (c). In Fig. 1(b), an F-shaped strip is located on
the top layer with a uniform width of 0.5 mm, driven by a 50-Ω
microstrip line. On the bottom layer, a parasitically coupled
L-shaped strip is connected to the ground, denoted by a dashed
box. The dual-layer strips are used to generate multiple modes
for the high band (1710-2690 MHz). A 3-D folded vertical
copper plate is placed on the no ground portion, and connected
with the PCB at two points A and B. At point A, it is connected (b)
with the driven strip, and a tuning pad is added. At point B, a
slim line strip is used to induce a parasitic capacitance with the
ground plane. The folded metal plate is used to excite the bezel
mode to cover the low band (824-960 MHz). The detailed
configurations are depicted in Fig. 1(c). This metal plate is
etched by a trapezoidal slot to reduce the coupling to the driven
strips. And an additional straight strip is loaded in the slot to
generate one more mode for bandwidth enhancement. All of the
geometric parameters are optimized by using the electromag-
netic field software Ansoft HFSS.

(c)
Fig. 1. Configuration of the proposed antenna: (a) 3-dimensinal view, (b)
details of the printed driven strip, and (c) details of the 3-D folded copper plate.

III. DESIGN PROCESS AND ANALYSIS

A. Bezel mode analysis
Metal bezels of mobile phones have a great impact on an-

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tenna performances, such as bandwidth and radiation efficiency.
To reduce degradations, an efficient way is to utilize the bezel
mode. The modes of a complete floating bezel have been ana-
lyzed in [16] by using TCM. It indicates that the bezel modes
exist below 1 GHz, which are potentials for low band operation.
The paper uses a simple folded monopole as an exciter to cover
the 824-960 MHz band. However, there is no adequate extra
space for other band designs, so the higher band suffers from a
band rejection.
A capacitive coupling copper plate is used here as the exciter
to excite the bezel mode. As depicted in Fig. 2, the met-
al-rimmed smartphone is modeled with a combination of the
system ground (single-sided PCB) and the floating copper
bezel. The configuration parameters are the same as those in
Fig. 1(a). The no ground portion is reserved with a size of 60 ×
5 mm2. A vertically placed metal plate (Lp × Hp = 60 ×5 mm2)
is used as an exciter, which is unequally fed by a 50-Ω mi-
crostrip line. The bezel mode is excited by the gap between the
vertical plate and the frame, which causes a capacitive elec-
tromagnetic coupling.
Fig. 2. Geometry of the bezel model with capacitive exciting method.
Fig. 3. Simulated S11 of the bezel model with different gaps G.
To better understand the operating principles of the bezel
mode with the proposed capacitive coupling structure, the in-
fluence of the gap between the chassis and the bezel (desig-
nated by G) on the impedance bandwidth is shown in Fig. 3. A
larger gap results in a smaller equivalent capacitance, which
also means a weaker coupling. It can be observed that a reso-
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nant point at around 790 MHz is generated when the bezel
exists, which means that the bezel mode is excited. It can also
be inferred from the simulated S11 results that a wider imped-
ance bandwidth corresponds to a larger gap. That is to say, the
bandwidth is limited by the gap. However, a large gap is usually
not permitted for modern narrow-frame smartphones, so G = 3
mm is chosen here.
B. Capacitive loading method for the low band
As analyzed in Part A, the bezel mode can be excited by the
proposed vertical plate. But the bandwidth is narrow, which
cannot meet the requirements for smartphones. The capacitive
loading method is used here by introducing a slim strip at the
end of the vertical plate, as shown in Fig. 4 (a). The loading
strip is a 0.5-mm-thick line printed on the system board on the
bottom layer, forming a gap with the ground plane. The con-
figuration is optimized to adjust the induced capacitance. The
length of the strip is 20 mm, and the gap between the strip and
the ground is 0.8 mm. Fig. 4(b) shows the simulated S11
with/without the capacitive loading strip. A wide bandwidth of
27% (0.76-1.0 GHz) is obtained by using the proposed structure,
covering the 824-960 MHz band.
(a)
(b)
Fig. 4. (a) Configuration of the capacitive loading strip. (b) Comparison of
simulated S11 results with/without loading.
The simulated currents on the bezel at the lower and upper
edge frequencies (0.76 and 1 GHz) are shown in Fig. 5. Two
current nulls can be observed in each figure, representing a 1-λ
perimeter bezel mode. The current distributions are consistent
with a one-wavelength resonant mode at the corresponding
frequency. It is noticed that the currents concentrate at the
top-left and bottom-right corner at 0.76 GHz, while opposite at
1 GHz. It means that different bezel modes can be excited with
the proposed end-loaded distributed capacitance, which change
from one state to another as frequency increases, contributing
to a wide bandwidth.
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(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Fig. 5. Simulated bezel currents at 0.76 GHz and 1 GHz.

C. Design process for the high band

According to the above studies in Sec. III A and B, the low
band (824-960 MHz) is easy to be covered by exiting the bezel
mode with the proposed structure. A ground clearance of 60 ×5
mm2 is reserved for the high band (1710-2690 MHz) design. In
this subsection, we will introduce the evolution process of
merging multiple modes, for the purpose of covering the two
bands. Four types of configuration are shown in Figs. 6(a)-(d),
which represent four important states during the evolution. In
order to get a better view, the bezel is not depicted here. The
corresponding simulated S11 results are plotted and compared in
Fig. 6(e).
At the beginning, no strips are added and the vertical plate is
not modified, as depicted in Type I. This type can only offer the
bezel mode for the low band. In Type II a branch (Branch 1) is
connected with the feeding line to generate a λ/4 resonant mode
for the high band. It is observed from Fig. 6(e) that an obvious
resonance appears at about 2.2 GHz, without sacrificing the
performances of the low band. To reduce the coupling and
maintain the characteristics of two bands simultaneously, the
vertical plate is cut with a trapezoidal slot, and a folded edge is
added as a compensation. However, the bandwidth of this mode
is too narrow to cover the high band. It is a challenge to widen
the frequency band in such a small ground clearance area. An
effective solution is merging multiple modes by utilizing mul-
tiple strips [7], which is also adopted here, as shown in Type III.
An F-shaped strip (Branch 1 and 2) is connected to the feeding
line on the top layer, and an L-shaped strip (Branch 3) is con-
nected with the ground plane on the bottom layer. The length
and width of the strips have been optimized to generate multi-
ple different resonant modes. It can be seen in the simulated
results, a wide band is obtained for high band operation, from
1.55 GHz to 2.55 GHz. In order to increase the upper edge of
the frequency band, another λ/4 resonant mode is added by
using Branch 4 in Type IV. It forms the final proposed structure.
The new branch is placed in the slot of the folded plate, so it has
little influence on other modes excited by the branches (Branch
1-3) in Type III. The simulated S11 results in Fig. 6(e) show the
bandwidth enhancement effects. With the proposed structure, a
wide bandwidth of 62% (1.5-2.85 GHz) for the high band is
obtained. Meanwhile, a bandwidth of about 23% (0.76-0.96
GHz) remains for the low band.
(e)
Fig. 6. Geometry evolution of multiple modes design. (a) Type I: original, (b)
Type II: metal plate modified and Branch 1 added to Type I, (c) Type III:
Branch 2 and 3 added to Type II, (d) Type IV: Branch 4 added to Type III,
proposed. (e) Comparison of simulated S11 results.
D. Multiple modes analysis
The design evolution has shown the capability of obtaining a
wide bandwidth for the upper band, with the low band not
affected. However, focusing on the impedance bandwidth is
insufficient to verify the excited multiple modes, and not intu-
itive to understand the working principles. In this subsection,
the simulated currents of each mode are presented and the
corresponding radiating part is analyzed.
The resonant mode in the low band has been analyzed in Sec.
III A and B, that is, the bezel mode. Here we pay more atten-
tions on other modes in the high band. The corresponding ra-
diating part of the high band is composed of Branch 1-4, as
depicted in Fig. 4(d). In Figs. 5(a)-(e), amplitude distributions
of the surface currents are presented, at 1.55 GHz, 1.7 GHz, 2
GHz, 2.5 GHz and 2.8 GHz, respectively. The five frequencies
represent the changes in the wide upper band from 1.5-2.85
GHz, which is the -6 dB impedance bandwidth of the proposed
antenna. The directions of the currents are depicted with black
arrows.
It is observed that the surface currents concentrate on Branch
3 at 1.55 GHz and 1.7 GHz, from Figs. 7(a) and (b). Branch 3 is
connected to the ground plane with a non-uniform width. The
wider patch at the end offers more current paths to obtain a

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wider bandwidth for this resonant mode. In Fig. 7(c) at 2 GHz, positions and parameters have to be chosen. Branch 4 is an
the simulated currents concentrate on Branch 1. A mono- additional radiator which has slight influence on the other
pole-like λ/4 mode is generated by this branch. It is noticed that branches, so the length of branch 4 can be easily tuned to
Branch 1 has a length of 22 mm, corresponding to about change the corresponding resonant frequency.
0.147λ0 (λ0 is the wavelength in free space) at 2 GHz. Consid-
ering the effect of the substrate (r = 4.4), it corresponds to
about 0.24λr (λr is the wavelength in substrate). Fig. 7(d) shows
the current distributions at 2.5 GHz. This relates to both Branch
1 and 2, together offering a dipole-like λ/2 resonant mode. Note
that the length of the current path is 36 mm, corresponding to
about 0.49λr (λr is the wavelength in the substrate), which also
helps to verify the λ/2 resonant mode. Fig. 7(e) shows another
mode at 2.8 GHz, with corresponding radiating part of Branch 4.
This branch is a part of the 3-D folded copper, as an additional
strip with a length of 25mm. It can be seen that the current
distributions show a monopole-like λ/4 resonant mode.

(a) Fig. 8. Simulated input impedance of the proposed antenna with multiple
modes.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

A prototype of the proposed mobile monopole antenna is
(b) fabricated and measured. As shown in the photos of Fig. 9, a
complete rectangle bezel is made by a 0.2-mm thick copper
plate, embracing the system board on four sides with foam as
the carrier. A folded copper plate is handmade and soldered to
the metal layer of the printed substrate board. The impedance
bandwidth is obtained by using a network analyzer. Radiation
(c)
performances are obtained by using SATIMO antenna meas-
urement system.

(d)

(e)
Fig. 7. Simulated surface current distributions of multiple modes at (a) 1.55
GHz, (b) 1.7 GHz, (c) 2 GHz, (d) 2.5 GHz, and (e) 2.8 GHz.

According to the analyses of the simulated currents on

Branch 1-4, four different resonant modes can be observed, i.e.,
the 1.55/1.7 GHz λ/4 mode, 2 GHz λ/4 mode, 2.5 GHz λ/2
mode, and 2.8 GHz λ/4 mode. These four resonant modes are
displayed in the input impedance in Fig. 8. Four obvious res-
onances are generated in the high band, contributing to a wide
band coverage. However, these four resonances cannot be
arbitrarily tuned. Especially, Branch 1-3 cannot work alone to
generate the corresponding resonant mode, because the radiator
relies on the dual-layer coupling structure. Strong electro-
magnetic coupling exists between the branches, so precise
(a) (b)
Fig. 9. Photos of the fabricated proposed antenna. (a) Front view; (b) Back
view.
A. Scattering Parameters
Figure 10 shows the comparison of simulated and measured
reflection coefficients. The red solid line represents the meas-
ured result, and the blue dashed line is the simulated one. Both
lines agree well in the whole band. A slight frequency deviation
appears at the upper edge, which is mainly caused by the
manmade error of the folded copper plate. A -6 dB line is de-

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picted in Fig. 10, denoting the impedance matching standard of

mobile phone antennas. The measured bandwidth is about 23%
(0.76-0.96 GHz) and 57% (1.51-2.72 GHz) for the low band
and high band, respectively. It covers the hepta-band for
LTE/WWAN mobile phone applications, which includes
GSM850/900, DCS/PCS/MTS and LTE2300/2500 operations.

(b)

Fig. 10. Comparison between the measured and simulated reflection coefficient
(S11) of the proposed antenna.

B. Radiation Characteristics
The measured radiation patterns are shown in Fig. 11. The
radiation patterns are normalized at 0.9 GHz, 1.7 GHz, 2 GHz,
and 2.5 GHz, which represent the performances both in the low
and high bands. They are described with the measured 2-D
electric field data in three planes: x-z, y-z and x-y planes, re-
spectively in Figs. 11(a)-(c). The measured results show om-
nidirectional patterns in x-z and y-z planes with either Eφ or Eθ.
That is suitable for wireless communications because the re-
ceived polarization components are comparable after mul-
ti-path transmission [12]. They indicate that a full coverage
area in free space can be guaranteed for practical mobile
communication applications.

(c)
Fig. 11. Measured radiation patterns of the proposed antenna in (a) x-z plane, (b)
y-z plane, and (c) x-y plane at four frequencies: 0.9 GHz, 1.7 GHz, 2 GHz, and
2.5 GHz. (Red solid lines are for |Eφ|, blue dashed lines are for |Eθ|, Units: dBi)

The measured and simulated realized peak gains and radia-

tion efficiencies are presented in Figs. 12(a) and (b), for the low
band and the high band, respectively. The measured results are
based on the 3-D radiation fields, which are calculated by the
antenna measurement system SATIMO. The measured radia-
tion efficiency deteriorates compared with the simulated results,
especially for the low band. Handmade errors of the gap be-
tween the floating bezel and the chassis have considerable
effects on bezel mode, which corresponds to the low band
operation. The results in Fig. 12(a) don’t match very well as the
reflection coefficient in Fig. 10 because they are measured in
different places. During the measurement of radiation perfor-
mances in anechoic chamber, a frequency deviation may occur
due to the instability of the floating bezel. Moreover, the SMA
(a)
connector and the cable are not included in the simulation,

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which also have a slight influence on radiation performances. posed design, the feasibility of monopole type for met-
But the measured results still meet the requirement of mobile al-rimmed phones is validated. The high band is dominated by
antenna in practical applications [8]. For the low band (824-960 the proposed four monopole/dipole modes. The corresponding
MHz), the measured radiation efficiencies are between 54% radiating currents concentrate in a small ground clearance. It
and 86%, with realized peak gains vary from 0.22 to 3.78 dBi. tends to provide more stable radiation performances in a com-
For the high band, the measured total efficiencies are between plex environment, containing effects of hand-grip and sur-
50% and 74%, and the realized peak gains vary from -0.18 to rounding circuit components, etc.
3.7 dBi. The measured gains show good agreement with the
simulated ones. The radiation performances indicate that the TABLE I
proposed antenna is a good candidate for hepta-band met- COMPARISONS BETWEEN THE PROPOSED ANTENNA AND REFERENCES
al-framed smartphones.
Size Profile Frequency Effciency
No. Metal rim
(mm2) (mm) band (%)

[8] 60×8 0.8 No rim Hepta-band >40/44-70

80×8 5.8 No rim Octa-band 64.1-94.5/
[9]
50.2-73.2
70×(10 5 Unbroken Hepta-band 54-79
[12]
+5)
[13] 70×8 5 Slotted Hepta-band 50-78
[14] 45×5 5 Slotted Hepta-band 54-96
Proposed 60×5 5 Unbroken Hepta-band 54-86/50-7
4
Size: size of ground clearance.
Hepta-band: 824-960/1710-2690 MHz. Octa-band: 698-960/1710-2690 MHz.
Effciency: [8-9] and this paper provide the radiation efficiency, [12-14] provide
the total efficiency. The first and second value corresponds to the low and high
band, respectively.

(a)
(b)
Fig. 12. Measured and simulated radiation efficiencies and realized peak gains
of the proposed antenna. (a) The low band; (b) The high band.
Table I compares the proposed antenna with recent publica-
tions. All the designs are on mobile phone platforms for oc-
ta-band or hepta-and LTE/WWAN applications. Note that the
antennas in [8-9] have no metal rim. The metal bezels in [13-14]
are broken with slots. The proposed antenna benefits from a
narrow ground clearance and complete metal bezel for hep-
ta-band operations. All the designs with metal rims in [12-14]
utilize loop antenna modes in the gap between bezel and chassis
for coverage of both low and high band. Currents distribute
along the edges of the whole body of phones, resulting in an
efficiency deterioration about 40% over the whole band when
mobile phones are directly touched by hands [13]. In the pro-
V. CONCLUSION
A novel monopole antenna merging multiple modes is pre-
sented in this paper for metal-rimmed smartphones with hep-
ta-band LTE/WWAN operations. The antenna occupies a small
ground clearance of 60 × 5 mm2 with a low profile of 5 mm.
Meanwhile the metal bezel is kept complete without any mod-
ifications. The bandwidth of the bezel mode is enhanced by
using the capacitive loading method for the low operating band
of 824-960 MHz. For the coverage of the high band of
1710-2690 MHz, multiple branches are designed to generated
different modes. The design principles and working mecha-
nisms are introduced and analyzed. No matching circuits or
lumped elements are needed with the proposed antenna. A
prototype is fabricated and measured to validate the design.
Measured parameters and radiation characteristics agree well
with the simulated results. With the merits of unbroken met-
al-rim, small ground clearance and low profile, this design is
promising for modern hepta-band smartphone applications.
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[6] H. Xu, H. Y. Wang, S. Gao, H. Zhou, Y. Huang, Q. Xu, and Y. J. Cheng, Wei Yang, born in Sichuan, China, in 1984, Ph.D,
“A compact and low-profile loop antenna with six resonant modes for he is currently an assistant professor in school of
LTE smartphones,” IEEE Tran. Antennas Propag., vol. 64, no. 9, pp. Electronic Engineering of University of Elec-
3743-3751, Sep. 2016. tronic Science and Technology of China
[7] H. J. Liu, R. L. Li, Y. Pan, X. L. Quan, L. Yang, and L. Zheng, “A mul- (UESTC). He received the B.S. degree and Ph.D
ti-broadband planar antennas for GSM/UMTS/LTE and WLAN/WiMAX degree from Sichuan University (SCU) in 2007
Handsets,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 62, no. 5, pp. 2856-2860, and UESTC in 2012, respectively.
May 2014. From July 2012 to December 2013, he was
[8] C. J. Deng, Y. Li, Z. J. Zhang, and Z. H. Feng, “A novel low-profile working on next generation wireless communi-
hepta-band handset antennas using modes controlling method,” IEEE cation as a research engineer in HuaWei Tech-
Trans Antennas Propag., vol. 63, no.2, pp. 799-804, Feb. 2015. nologies Company. From January 2014 to No-
[9] Y. Wang and Z. W. Du, “Wideband monopole antenna with less vember 2016, he was with the Temasek Labora-
nonground portion for octa-band WWAN/LTE mobile phones,” IEEE tories (TL) in National University of Singapore (NUS) as a research scientist.
Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 64, no. 1, pp. 383-388, Jan. 2016. He has more than 14 journal papers and holds 2 patents. His research in-
[10] G. H. Kim and T. Y. Yun, “Small wideband monopole antenna with a terests include antenna design, computational electromagnetics, signal pro-
distributed inductive strip for LTE/GSM/UMTS,” IEEE Antennas Wire- cessing, radar imaging.
less Propag. Lett., vol. 14, pp. 1677-1680, 2015.
[11] J. Lee, Y. Liu, and H. Kim, “Mobile antenna using multi-resonance feed
structure for wideband operation,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. Zaiping Nie (SM’96) was born in Xi’an, China in
62, no. 11, pp. 5851-5855, Nov. 2014. 1946. He received the B.S. degree in radio engi-
[12] Y. L. Ban, Y. F. Qiang, Z. Chen, K. Kang, and J. H. Guo, “A dual-loop neering and the M.S. degree in Electromagnetic
antenna design for hepta-band WWAN/LTE metal-rimmed smartphone Field and Microwave Technology from the
applications,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 63, no. 1, pp. 48-58, Cheng du Institute of Radio Engineering [now the
Jan. 2015. University of Electronic Science and Technology
[13] Y. Liu, Y. M. Zhou, G. F. Liu, and S. X. Gong, “Heptaband inverted-F of China (UESTC)], Cheng du, in 1968 and 1981,
antenna for metal-rimmed mobile phone applications,” IEEE Antennas respectively.
Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 15, pp. 996-999, 2016. From 1987 to 1989, he was a Visiting Scholar
[14] J. W. Lian, Y. L. Ban, Y. L. Yang, L. W. Zhang, C. Y. D. Sim, and K. with the Electromagnetics Laboratory, University
Kang, “Hybrid Multi-mode narrow-frame antenna for WWAN/LTE of Illinois, and Urbana. Currently, he is a Pro-
metal-rimmed smartphone applications,” IEEE Access, vol. 4, pp. fessor with the Department of Electromagnetic
3991-3998, 2016. Engineering. He is also the author or coauthor of
[15] H. Chen, A. P. Zhao, “LTE antenna design for mobile phone with metal more than 290 journal papers. His research interests include antenna theory and
frame,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 15, pp. 1462-1465, techniques, field and waves in inhomogeneous media, computational electro-
2016. magnetics and its applications, electromagnetic scattering and inverse scatter-
[16] C. J. Deng, Z. H. Feng, and S. V. Hum, “MIMO mobile handset antenna ing, antenna techniques in mobile communications, etc.
merging characteristic modes for increased bandwidth,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propag., vol. 64, no. 7, Jul. 2016.
Qinghuo Liu (S’88-M’89-SM’94-F’05) received
the B.S. and M.S. degrees in physics from Xia-
men University, Fujian Province, China, in 1983
and 1986, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in
Yaohui Yang was born in Henan, China in 1991. electrical engineering from the University of
He received the B.S. degree in electromagnetic Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in 1989.
wave propagation and antenna from University of He was with the Electromagnetics Laboratory,
Electronic Science and Technology of China University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, as a
(UESTC), Chengdu, China, in 2013. He is cur- Research Assistant from September 1986 to
rently working toward the Ph.D. degree at December 1988, and as a Postdoctoral Research
UESTC. Associate from January 1989 to February 1990.
His research interests include compact and He was a Research Scientist and Program Leader
multiband terminal antennas for wireless com- with Schlumberger-Doll Research, Ridgefield CT,
munications. from 1990 to 1995. From 1996 to May 1999, he was an Associate Professor
with New Mexico State University, Albuquerque. Since June 1999, he was
been with Duke University, Durham, NC, where he is now a Professor of
Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is also a Visiting Professor at the
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), Chengdu.
His research interests include computational electromagnetics and acoustics,
Zhiqin Zhao (SM’05) received the B.S. and M.S. inverse problems, geophysical subsurface sensing, biomedical imaging, elec-
degrees in electronic engineering from the Uni- tronic packaging, and the simulation of photonic and nano devices. He has
versity of Electronic Science and Technology of published more than 350 papers in refereed journals and conference proceed-
China (UESTC), Chengdu, China, and the Ph.D. ings.
degree in electrical engineering from Oklahoma Dr. Liu is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, a member of Phi
State University, Stillwater, in 1990, 1993, and Kappa Phi, Tau Beta Pi, and a full member of the U.S. National Committee of
2002, respectively. URSI Commissions B and F. Currently he serves as an Associate Editor for
From 1996 to 1999, he was with the Depart- Radio Science, and for the IEEE TRNASACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND
ment of Electronic Engineering, UESTC. From REMOTE SENSING, for which he also served as a Guest Editor for a Special
2000 to 2002, he researched rough surface scat- Issue on Computational Methods. He received the 1996 Presidential Early
tering as a Research Assistant with the School of Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from the White House,
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Oklahoma the 1996 Early Career Research Award from the Environmental Protection
State University. In 2003, he was a Research Agency, and the 1997 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation.
Associate with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke
University, Durham, NC. In 2006, he became a Full Professor with the School
of Electronic Engineering, UESTC. His current research interests include
computational electromagnetics and signal processing.
Dr. Zhao is a member of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society.

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