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A Simple Reconfigurable Antenna, Ding et al., page 2

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11:40am 11:50m
FE4
A Simple Reconfigurable Antenna

T. N. Ding, P. Sillard, P.-T. Ho

Electrical Engineering Department
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742

Summary

When a semiconductor is irradiated with light or

electrons of sufficient energy, the irradiated part will
become conducting. This well-known mechanism can be used to
create antennas with conducting parts controlled by the
irradiating source, and structures reconfigurable by
changing the irradiation patterns. We have analyzed the
practicality of this method of antenna reconfiguration, and
come to the conclusion that for whole-area reconfigurable
antennas (all of whose conducting parts are irradiated), the
most practical method is with an incoherent optical source.
In this paper, we will present both our analysis, and our
experiment on a simple reconfigurable antenna which is
summarized below.
A simple reconfigurable is illustrated in Fig. 1. A
camera flash, whose output light energy was measured to be
about 1 joule, illuminated a 4"-diameter, undoped silicon
wafer through a mask which transmitted a bow-tie pattern.
The illuminated pattern on the silicon served as the antenna
and was connected through a transmission line to a signal
source. On a second silicon wafer, gold was deposited to
create the same bow-tie pattern which serves as the
receiving antenna and was connected to a spectrum analyzer.
A continuous signal from 1 GHz to 3 GHz was fed to the
transmitting antenna, and the signal levels received by the
reconfigurable antenna were recorded (Fig. 1). The
reconfigurable antenna then was replaced with a third
antenna which was identical to the receiving, metallic
antenna. The measurements were repeated. The efficiency of
the reconfigurable antenna relative to the metallic antenna
was determined by the relative signal levels received by the
two antennas.
Over the range 1 GHz - 3 GHz, for which the antennas
was designed, the reconfigurable antenna was about 5 dB
less efficient than the metallic antenna. However,
impedance mismatch between the antenna and the transmission
 A Simple Reconfigurable Antenna, Ding et al., page 3

line has not been accounted for, and the reconfigurable

antenna may well be more efficient. Further experimental
results and analysis thereof will be presented in the
conference.
If the mask in the experiment is replaced by a liquid
crystal display panel, then the antenna can be reconfigured
by direct computer control.
This work was supported in part by ARPA/Air Force.

Silicon Flash
light

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Fig. 1 Experimental Set-up

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