by using this filter structures, the lowest frequency is signifi-
Gopikrishna, and
cantly decreased from 3.65 to 2.8 GHz. Figure 9 shows the
measured antenna gain from 3 to 11 GHz for the proposed
antenna with the filter structure. The Figure indicates that the
realized dual band-notched antenna has good gain flatness
except in the two notched bands. As shown in Figure 9, gain
decreases drastically at the frequency bands of 3.5 and 5.5 GHz.
Figure 10 shows the measured radiation pattern in frequencies
4.5, 8, and 11 GHz of the UWB band in H-plane (xz plane) and
E-plane (yz plane). From an overall view of these radiation pat-
terns, the designed antenna behaves quite similarly to the typical
printed monopoles in the lower and middle frequency bands.
The Figure is approximately indicative of omnidirectional radia-
tion pattern in x–z plane.
4. CONCLUSION
In this article, a novel CPW-fed antenna with dual band-notch
function is proposed for UWB applications. Dual stop-band is
achieved using an E-shaped form on the radiation patch. The
notched band can be controlled by adjusting the filter structures
on the patch, which exempt from interfaces with existing
WiMAX, WLAN, and C operating bands. By inserting two
notches in the corners on the ground plane with proper dimen-
sions, a wide impedance bandwidth is achieved. This antenna
with two controllable notched bands is suitable for UWB sys-
tems with proper dimensions and aforementioned characteristics.
REFERENCES
1. H. Schantz, The art and science of UWB antennas, Artech House,
Norwood, MA, 2005.
2. Q. Wu, R. Jin, J. Geng, and M. Ding, Printed omni-directional
UWB monopole antenna with very compact size, IEEE Trans
Antennas Propag 56 (2008), 896–899.
3. M. Moosazadeh, C. Ghobadi, and Z. Esmati, Monopole antenna
based on wrench-shaped slot on circular disc patch for UWB appli-
cation, Microwave Opt Technol Lett 53 (2011), 1927–1931.
4. M. Ojaroudi, C. Gobadi, and J. Nourinia, Small square monopole
antenna with inverted T-shaped notch in the ground plane for ultra-
wideband (UWB) application, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag Lett
8 (2009), 728–731.
5. K.G. Thomas and M. Sreenivasan, Printed elliptical monopole with
shaped ground plane for pattern stability, Electron Lett 45 (2009),
445–446.
6. M. Moosazadeh, C. Ghobadi, and M. Dousti, Small monopole
antenna with checkered- shaped patch for UWB application, IEEE
Antennas Wireless Propag Lett 9 (2010), 1014–1017.
Figure 1 Geometry of the U-shaped monopole UWB antenna, (a) geometry and (b) photograph. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue,
which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
1532 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 54, No. 6, June 2012
7. R. Gayathri, T.U. Jisney, D.D. Krishna, M.
C.K. Aanandan, Band- notched inverted-cone monopole antenna
for compact UWB systems, Electron Lett 44 (2008),
1170–1171.
8. M.A. Antoniades and G.V. Eleftheriades, A compact multiband
monopole antenna with a defected ground plane, IEEE Antennas
Wireless Propag Lett 7 (2008), 652–655.
9. K. Bahadori and Y. Rahmat-Samii, A miniaturized elliptic-card
UWB antenna with WLAN band rejection for wireless communica-
tions, IEEE Trans Antennas Propag 55 (2007), 3326–3332.
10. C.-Y. Hong, C.-W. Ling, I.-Y. Tarn, and S.-J. Chung, Design of a
planar ultrawideband antenna with a new band-notched structure,
IEEE Trans Antennas Propag 55 (2007), 3391–3397.
11. K. Chung, S. Hong, and J. Choi, Ultrawide-band printed monopole
antenna with band-notch filters, Microwave Antennas Propag 1
(2007), 518–522.
12. L.-N. Zhang, S.-S. Zhong, X.-L. Liang, and C.-Z. Du, Compact
omnidirectional band-notch ultra-wideband antenna, Electron Lett
45 (2009), 659–660.
13. M. Ojaroudi, G. Ghanbari, N. Ojaroudi, and C. Ghobadi, Small
square monopole antenna for UWB applications with variable fre-
quency band-notch function, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag Lett 8
(2009), 1061–1064.
14. Ansoft Corp., Ansoft high frequency structure simulation (HFSS).
ver. 10, Ansoft Corp, Pittsburgh, PA, 2005.
V
C 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
STUDY OF A NOVEL U-SHAPED
MONOPOLE UWB ANTENNA BY
TRANSFER FUNCTION AND TIME
DOMAIN CHARACTERISTICS
G. P. Gao,1,2 M. K. Yang,1 S. F. Niu,1 and J. S. Zhang1
1
School of Information Science and Engineering, Lanzhou
University, Rom 404, Fei Yun Lou, 222 Tian Shui Road, Lanzhou,
730000, People’s Republic of China; Corresponding author:
gaoguoping-1983@163.com
2
State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, Southeast University,
Nanjing 210096, People’s Republic of China
Received 17 August 2011
ABSTRACT: A novel U-shaped monopole antenna suitable for
ultrawideband (UWB) application is presented and investigated in this
article. The antenna is developed from printed circular disc monopole
antenna, and the current distribution evident that the proposed antenna
has a similar current. Three steps in ground plane is designed and
adjusted to obtain UWB impedance matching. Experimental results show
DOI 10.1002/mop
that the proposed antenna meets the requirement of wide working systems. V
C 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett

bandwidth of 3.1–10.6 GHz with VSWR < 2. Study of transfer function
(magnitude of S21/group delay) and time domain characteristic
(waveform/fidelity) indicate a good UWB application behavior for the
antenna. The proposed antenna has a compact size, good radiation
characteristics, ultra wide bandwidth, and good time-domain behaviors
to satisfy the requirement of the current wireless communications
54:1532–1537, 2012; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com.
DOI 10.1002/mop.26840
Key words: monopole; U shaped; UWB antenna; transfer function; time
domain characteristics

1. INTRODUCTION
TABLE 1 Dimensions of the Proposed U-Shaped Monopole Since 2002, The Federal Communication Commission had
UWB Antenna
released the frequency bands 3.1–10.6 GHz for the ultrawide-
Parameter Value band (UWB) system. The UWB communication systems have
gained much attention due to their many advantages including
W 28
high transmission rate, high capacity, and low power consump-
L 34
W1 2.6 tion for indoor communication applications. Antenna is an im-
L1 13 portant part of UWB communication systems, and it is a chal-
H 0.7 lenge to design the antenna suitable for such a wide frequency
R 8.6 band applications. Printed monopole antenna, due to the simple
d1 6 structure, wide bandwidth and nearly omnidirectional radiation
d2 4 patterns, has been widely used in UWB antenna design. Many
d3 3.5 planar monopole antenna designs have been widely used in the
h1 0.5 UWB system [1–8]. In this letter, we propose a novel U-shaped
h2 1
monopole UWB antenna. The antenna parameters which affect
h3 1
impedance are studied and the geometry is constructed and
d 5
Wc 6 measured. Details of the antenna design and the current distribu-
tion, VSWR, radiation pattern, gain, and time-domain character-
All dimensions are in millimeters. istic are presented and discussed.

Figure 2 Simulated current distribution of the circular disc monopole UWB antenna. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is avail-
able at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Figure 3 Simulated current distribution of the U-shaped monopole UWB antenna. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available
at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

DOI 10.1002/mop MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 54, No. 6, June 2012 1533
Figure 4 Simulated VSWR against frequency with various steps.
[Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]

2. ANTENNA DESIGN AND RESULTS

Figure 1(a) shows the geometry of proposed U-shaped monopole
UWB antenna. As shown in Figure 1, the proposed antenna is fab-
ricated on a substrate with the relative dielectric constant of er ¼
4.4 and the thickness of h ¼ 1.4 mm with width and length of W
and L. The radiation element is a U-shaped monopole which is
fed by microstrip line. The width of the microstrip feed line is
fixed at W1 to achieve 50 X characteristic impedance. There are
three steps in the ground plane to adjust impedance matching. The
current distribution of circular disc monopole antenna focuses on
the edge of radiator and reaches the densest at the feeding gap.
So, we can get the U-shaped monopole antenna by cutting off the
middle part, and the performance of the antenna becomes better.
Dimension of the proposed antenna is shown in Table 1. The ge-
ometry is made and the photograph is shown in Figure 1(b).
Figures 2 and 3 show the current distribution of the printed
circular disc monopole UWB antenna and the U-shaped mono-
pole UWB antenna, respectively. The simulation of antenna is Figure 6 The simulated radiation patterns at different frequencies. (a)
taken using CST Microwave Studio software which is based on x–z Plane (H-plane) and (b) x–z Plane (E-plane). [Color figure can be
the method of finite integration technology. We can see that the viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
distribution of the antenna reaches the densest at the feeding gap.

Figure 5 Measured and simulated VSWR for the proposed antenna.

[Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at
wileyonlinelibrary.com] Figure 7 Peak gain against frequency for the proposed antenna

1534 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 54, No. 6, June 2012 DOI 10.1002/mop
 Figure 8 The transfer function measurement setup. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
In Figure 2, the current distribution reaches the densest at the bot-
tom and edge of the disc. So, we can cutoff the center and top
part of the disc to obtain the U-shaped monopole antenna as
shown in Figure 3. As compared to the printed circular disc
monopole UWB antenna, the U-shaped monopole UWB antenna
presents a similar current distribution in the operation band.
Figure 4 shows the VSWR of prototypes of the proposed
antenna against various steps. It can be seen that the VSWR is
strongly affected by the multistep ground, and the antenna can
obtain wideband impedance matching by adjusting the steps. For
the antenna without steps, the frequency range for VSWR > 2
is from 8.2 to 10.5 GHz. This frequency range decreases to 8.3–
9.9 GHz for the antenna with one step. Finally, we choose three
steps for the antenna to obtain the proposed wide impedance
matching.
The measurement is achieved using Agilent E8363B Vector
Network Analyzer. Measured and simulated VSWR for the con-
structed prototype is shown in Figure 5. Measured VSWR shows
a similar result to the simulation. The measured frequency range
for VSWR < 2 is from 3.0 to 11 GHz. Both the measured and
simulated results are suitable for UWB application.
Figure 9 Simulated S21 for the antenna system. [Color figure can be
viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
DOI 10.1002/mop MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 54, No. 6, June 2012
The simulated radiation patterns in the H-plane and E-plane
are plotted in Figures 6(a) and 6(b), respectively. It can be seen
that the H-plane radiation patterns are approximately omnidirec-
tional and the variation is less than 10 dB over the entire opera-
tion frequencies, so the radiation is relatively stable in different
frequencies. The E-plane radiation patterns at 4 GHz are about
the same as that of a dipole antenna, whereas it becomes butter-
fly-shaped at 7 and 9 GHz. So, the E-plane pattern is monopole-
like, and the number of lobes rises with the increase of fre-
quency which means the antennas get more directional. Figure 7
shows the peak gain of the proposed antenna. It is evident that
the peak gain is relatively flat over the operation band and the
variation is from 2.2 to 5.3 dBi (3.1–10.6 GHz). The maximum
simulated peak gain is 5.3 dBi at 8.4 GHz.
3. TRANSFER FUNCTION AND TIME DOMAIN STUDY
3.1. Transfer Function Measurement
For UWB communication systems, it is crucial to study the
transfer function for evaluating the proposed antenna’s perform-
ance and designing transmitted pulse signals. The UWB antenna
Figure 10 Measured S21 for the antenna system. [Color figure can be
viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
1535

Figure 11 Measured group delay of the antenna system
can be viewed as a filter with some magnitude and phase
response. The group delay is able to clearly show any nonlinear-
ity that may be present in the phase response and indicates the
Figure 12 Radiated pulses in x–z plane with different angles
1536 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 54, No. 6, June 2012
degree of the distortion. For UWB applications, the magnitude
of transfer function should be as flat as possible in the operating
band, whereas the phase response should be linear, and the
group delay is required to be constant over the entire operation
band as well [8–11].
The transfer function measurement is taken out using Agilent
E8363B Vector Network Analyzer as shown in Figure 8. A pair
of the proposed antenna is used as the transmitting and receiving
antenna. The transmitter and receiver are positioned side by side
(þx directions opposite) with a distance of 20 cm. By considering
the antenna system as a two-port network, the transmission scat-
tering parameter S21 which indicates the transfer function is meas-
ured. It should be noted that the measurement is carried out in a
real environment with reflecting objects in the surrounding area.
The simulated magnitude and phase response of S21 is shown
in Figure 9. The amplitude of S21 for the proposed antenna is
relatively flat from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz (variation less than 10 dB),
whereas the phase response is linear in this band. Measured
magnitude and phase of S21 is shown in Figure 10. It is seen
that the measurement and simulation shows a similar results.
The amplitude is relatively flat, and the frequency range of vari-
ation less than 10 dB is from 3.1 to 7.8 GHz, and it decreases
DOI 10.1002/mop
TABLE 2 Fidelity of the Proposed Antenna in x–z Plane with
Different Angles
h ( ) 0 30 60
Fidelity 1 0.9965 0.9919 0.9277
from 7.8 to 10.6 GHz. The ripple of magnitude and phase is
mainly caused by the real test environment.
Figure 11 shows the measured group delay of the antenna
system. The variation of group delay is less than 3 ns in opera-
tion band, which is suitable for UWB signal transmitting and
receiving. So, it proves that the antenna has a good time-domain
characteristic and a small pulse distortion as well.
3.2. Time Domain Study
To study the characteristics of proposed antenna in time domain
directly, the radiated pulse waveforms at different directions in
x–z plane (H-plane) is simulated and shown in Figure 12. The
curves have already been normalized to their respective maxi-
mum values. It can be seen that nearly the same radiated wave-
forms can be observed in x–z plane. The characteristics of pro-
posed antenna are very stable with the radiation angles. The
radiated waveforms are little distorted as compared with the
excited pulse. The pulse in þz direction has more triples than
other directions in x–z plane.
The fidelity is defined as
( R )
 pðtÞsðt
sÞdt 

q ¼ max pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
R p ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
R ffi 
s  p2 ðtÞdt s2 ðtÞdt
where s is a delay which is varied to make the numerator in Eq.
(1) a maximum. It determines the correlation between the elec-
tric field signals s(t) and p(t). The radiated pulse in þx direction
is chosen as the reference signal p(t), whereas the radiated pulse
in other directions as signal s(t), so the calculated fidelity of the
antenna in x–z plane is shown in Table 2. The fidelity in x–z
plane is more than 0.9965, which indicates that the radiated
pulses have the similar waveform in different directions. It
shows that the proposed antenna has little distorted for the
waveform, so it is suitable for the UWB applications.
4. CONCLUSIONS
A novel U-shaped monopole UWB antenna is investigated in
this article. By analysis, the current distribution of the printed
circular disc monopole antenna, the U-shaped monopole antenna
shows a similar result and the steps in ground plane are
designed so that the proposed antenna achieve the UWB appli-
cation. Simulation and experiment results show that the pro-
posed antenna has good characteristics in impedance matching,
radiation pattern, and time domain, which evident the antenna’s
application in UWB communications.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the Leading Academic Discipline Pro-
ject of State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, Southeast Uni-
versity (No. K201116).
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lar monopole antenna for UWB communication, IEEE Microwave
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2. Q. Wu, R. Jin, J. Geng, and J. Lao, Ultra-wideband rectangular disk
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90 3. M. Mohammad Akbari, M. Koohestani, C. Ghobadi, and J. Nourinia,
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performance, Microwave Opt Technol Lett 53 (2011), 1481–1483.
4. C. Yoon, W.S. Kim, S.Y. Kang, H.C. Lee, and H.D. Park, Printed
monopole antenna on a thin substrate for UWB applications, Micro-
wave Opt Technol Lett 53 (2011), 1262–1264.
5. R. Kumar and K.K. Sawant, Design of CPW-fed inscribed square
circular fractal antenna for UWB applications, Microwave Opt
Technol Lett 53 (2011), 1079–1083.
6. M. Naser-Moghadasi, H. Rousta, and B.S. Virdee, A highly compact
semielliptic shape ultrawideband monopole antenna, Microwave Opt
Technol Lett 53 (2011), 229–231.
7. L. Wang, W. Wu, X.W. Shi, F. Wei, and Q.L. Huang, Design of a
novel monopole UWB antenna with a notched ground, Prog Electro-
magn Res C 5 (2008), 13–20.
8. E.K. Miller (Ed.), Time-Domain Measurement in Electromagnetics,
Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1986.
9. L. Akhoondzadeh-Asl, M. Fardis, A. Abolghasemi, and G. Dadashzadeh,
Frequency and time domain characteristic of a novel notch frequency
UWB antenna, Prog Electromagn Res, PIER 80 (2008), 337–348.
10. F.J. Wang, J.S. Zhang, X.X. Yang, and G.P. Gao, Time domain
characteristics of a double-printed UWB dipole antenna, Prog Elec-
tromagn Res Lett 3 (2008), 161–168.
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V
C 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
(1)
NANOSECOND RESPONSE
ELECTRO-OPTIC SWITCH BASED ON
HIGH COST-EFFECTIVE POLED
POLYMERIC MATERIAL
Lin Jin, Zijian Cao, Jie Meng, Chunsheng Ma,
and Daming Zhang
State Key Laboratory on Integrated Optoelectronics, College of
Electronic Science and Engineering, Jilin University, 2699# Qianjin
Street, Changchun 130012, China; Corresponding author:
zhangdm@jlu.edu.cn
Received 18 August 2011
ABSTRACT: Low cost materials and fabrication techniques are
requited for the high cost-effective optical devices in the field of the
optical communication. In this article, a polymer electro-optic switch
operating at 1550 nm has been designed and fabricated. Such a switch
is based on a low-cost guest-host material by using Disperse Red 1
(DR1) as the guest and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) as the host.
DR1/PMMA can be synthesized easily. An optimal waveguide structure
has been proposed. With the coplanar waveguide electrodes and corona
poling, a push–pull switch device is achieved. The switch rise time and
fall time are 5 and 7 ns, respectively. The insertion loss of the device
(3.7-cm length) is less than 20 dB. VC 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Microwave Opt Technol Lett 54:1537–1541, 2012; View this article
online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.26839
Key words: photonic circuit; electro-optic switch; guest-host material;
Mach–Zehnder; switching time
1. INTRODUCTION
Electro-optic (EO) switches with excellent features have impor-
tant applications in optical communication networks and optical
signal processing systems due to their wide bandwidth [1], high
1537