538 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

8, 2009

A Novel High-Directivity Microstrip Patch Antenna

Based on Zero-Index Metamaterial
Hang Zhou, Zhibin Pei, Shaobo Qu, Song Zhang, Jiafu Wang, Zhangshan Duan, Hua Ma, and Zhuo Xu

Abstract—In this letter, a novel high-directivity microstrip patch

antenna (MPA) based on planar zero-index metamaterials is pre-
sented. An averaging effect over the metamaterial structure yields
an effective permittivity that approaches zero at 8.75 GHz, which
results in a metamaterial with zero index of refraction. Both the
simulation and experimental results show that the directivity of the
antenna is effectively enhanced based on the zero refraction char-
acteristics of the metamaterial.
Index Terms—Directivity, metamaterial, microstrip patch an-
tenna (MPA), zero-index metamaterials (ZIM).

I. INTRODUCTION Fig. 1. (a) Geometry of the unit cell. (b) Geometry of the simulated structure.

IGH-DIRECTIVE planar antennas are drawing more and

H more attention because they have a low profile and can be
easily fabricated by printed circuit board (PCB) technology. In
addition, they are lighter than reflector antennas and are thus
much easier to be installed. They have found applications in
various domains such as satellite communications and wireless
broadcasting. To realize the high directivity of the patch an-
tenna, a commonly used method is to put a frequency-selective
surface (FSS) or an electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) metama-
terial on top of a metallic ground plane containing a small an-
tenna so as to form a Fabry-Perot resonant cavity, and hence,
the gain of the small antenna can be enhanced [1], [2]. Such an
antenna does not require a complex feed network or a complex
Fig. 2. S-parameter.
power distribution system to realize high directivity and lower
sidelobe levels—as do the conventional array antennas.
As the appearance of left-handed metamatreials (LHMs), the In 2002, Enoch et al. experimentally demonstrated for the
conventional concept that the refraction of materials could only first time that energy radiated by a source embedded in a slab of
be positive was challenged [3], [4]. In fact, refraction of mate- ZIM will be concentrated in a narrow cone in the surrounding
rials could be positive, negative, or zero. Many groups have real- media, so a great improvement of directivity was potentially
ized low/zero-index metamaterials (LIM/ZIM) through experi- obtained [7]. Wu et al. studied the performances of the dipole
ments [5], [6]. According to Snell’s law, when the ray is incident antenna embedded in different LIM/ZIM structures [8]. Wu et
from inside the LIM/ZIM into free space, the angle of refraction al. proposed a horn antenna filled with a LIM/ZIM structure as
will be close to zero, so the refracted rays will be normal to the lenses in the aperture [9]. Unlike conventional curve lenses, the
interface. This property provides a unique method of controlling lens in [9] was designed using a fully planar structure, which
the direction of emission. results in a great improvement of the directivity of the horn an-
tenna based on the zero refraction characteristics of the meta-
material. However, most of the previous high-directive antennas
Manuscript received February 20, 2009. First published March 24, 2009;
current version published June 24, 2009. This work was supported in part by
based on the ZIM were mainly realized by putting line/point
the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 50632030 and source antennas embedded in metamaterials. Their applications
60871027 and by the 973 Project of Science and Technology Ministry of China are limited because they are more bulky and difficult to be fabri-
under Grant 2009CB613306.
H. Zhou, Z. Pei, S. Qu, S. Zhang, J. Wang, Z. Duan, and H. Ma are with
cated as compared to the high-directive planar antennas. In view
the College of Science, Air Force Engineering University, Xi’an 710051, China of the aforementioned considerations, we proposed in this letter
(e-mail: zh_CN1120@163.com; zh_flight@163.com; qushaobo@126.com; zh- a high-directivity antenna using a new type of two-layer ZIM
srock@sohu.com; wangjiafu1981@126.com; dzhangshan@yahoo.com). structure. We first design a ZIM structure based on the unit cell
Z. Xu is with the Electronic Materials Research Laboratory, Key Laboratory
of the Ministry of Education, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China. simulation. From the numerical results, we found that a zero
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2009.2018710 index of refraction occurred at 8.75 GHz. Then, we used the
1536-1225/$25.00 © 2009 IEEE
ZHOU et al.: HIGH-DIRECTIVITY MPA 539

Fig. 3. Effective index of refraction n of ZIM.

Fig. 5. The prototype of patch antenna with ZIM structure.

Fig. 6. Measured return-loss of the designed antenna with ZIM.

Fig. 4. Geometry of proposed ZIM structure antenna composite. (a) Side view.
(b) Top view.

ZIM structure as the superstrate of a microstrip patch antenna.

The simulation results obtained by the high frequency structure
simulator (HFSS) show that the directivity of the antenna is ef-
fectively enhanced compared to that of the patch antenna alone.
At last, an experiment was implemented, and the measured re-
sults show good agreement with the simulation ones.

II. DESIGN AND THEORY

In our previous work, we designed a left-handed structure
by introducing splits to the parallel metallic slabs [10]. Since
not only the electrical but also the magnetic resonance could
be adjusted by optimizing the parameters of the two splits, it
is easier to be designed as ZIM as compared to the metallic
cylinders [5] or metallic grids [7], [9]. In this letter, we used
the two-layer structure to design ZIM.
This structure can be seen as a metallic thin-wire array
because the period of the unit cell is about one-fourth of the
Fig. 7. Measured gain and directivity for the designed antenna with ZIM.
microwave wavelength. Previous theoretical and experimental
work completed by Pendry et al. have shown that the arrays of
continuous thin wires are characterized by a plasma frequency
[11], [12], , where is the plasma frequency
and is the frequency of the electromagnetic wave. Therefore,
the refractive index can approach zero on the
condition that the operating frequency is close to the plasma
540
Fig. 8. Simulated and measured radiation patterns of the antenna with ZIM at 8.75 GHz.
frequency, where is the effective permeability. Geomet-
rical dimensions of the unit cell in Fig. 1(a) are: mm,
mm, mm, mm, mm, where and
are the periodicity of the unit cell in the x- and y-directions,
respectively. The structure is based on Rogers 5880 substrate
with the same periodic metallic patterns printed on its two sur-
faces. The Rogers 5880 substrate has a thickness of 0.787 mm
and a dielectric constant of 2.2. Fig. 1(b) shows the geometry
of the simulated structure, where mm. The two-layer
structure is excited by a plane wave, and the four sides of the
structure are set to be periodic boundary conditions (PBC).
The reflection and transmission characteristics of the unit cell
are shown in Fig. 2. It can be found that the plasma frequency is
8.75 GHz. We retrieved the effective refraction index of struc-
ture from the results shown in Fig. 3. We find that both the real
and imaginary part of the refraction at frequency 8.75 GHz is
very close to zero, as shown in Fig. 3. That is to say, at the fre-
quency of 8.75 GHZ, this structure can be regarded as ZIM. It
is a very good candidate for designing high-directive antennas.
III. RESULTS
The new patch antenna system is shown in Fig. 4. A circle
patch microwave patch antenna operating at 8.75 GHz is de-
signed. The radius of the patch is 6.3 mm, and it is fed by a 50-
coaxial cable. The substrate of the antenna is Rogers 5880 with
a thickness of 0.787 mm and a dielectric constant of 2.2. Each
layer of the superstrate is made up of two metamaterial layers
with the array of 12 7 (in the x- and y-axis directions), so the
size of the cover is 72 mm 70 mm. The distance between the
substrate and the first layer is chosen to be mm in
order to optimize the performances of the antenna since its input
impedance is quite sensitive to this distance [6].
An experiment was carried out to verify our design. Fig. 5
shows the prototype of the patch antenna with the ZIM struc-
ture. The measured input return losses are shown in Fig. 6. As
can be seen in Fig. 6, 8.75 GHz is in the range of input-matching
bandwidth, determined by dB. This antenna was
then measured in a far-field chamber to get its radiation pat-
terns. Fig. 7 shows the measured directivity and gain of the an-
tenna versus frequency. As shown in Fig. 7, the directivity and
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 8, 2009
gain reached their maxima (17.3 and 16.2 dB, respectively) at
the frequency of 8.75 GHz. Fig. 8 shows the simulated and mea-
sured radiation patterns of the antenna at 8.75 GHz. The mea-
sured and the simulated results have the same trend, but there
are some little differences between them. This can be attributed
to the fabrication precision of the antenna and the losses of
far-field measuring system. The half-power width (3-dB width)
is in E-plane and in H-plane, which are
translated to a directivity dB.
Theoretically, the maximal directivity of an aperture antenna is
. Since the area of the aperture
mm mm and , where is the speed of light,
is the resonance frequency, the theoretical maximum direc-
tivity value of the antenna is dB. The directivity
of the designed antenna is very close to the maximum directivity
(17.36 dB), which is physically possible for this size of antenna.
It can be concluded that the experimental results agree well with
the simulation ones.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this letter, we have presented a novel high-directivity MPA
with a planar ZIM. First, we designed a planar ZIM by the unit
cell simulation. We investigated the electromagnetic parameters
and found that zero refraction occurred at 8.75 GHz. Second,
an MPA with a resonance frequency of 8.75 GHz was designed.
The directivity of the MPA was effectively enhanced when we
used the ZIM structure as its cover. In the end, the ZIM struc-
ture antenna was fabricated, and the measured radiation patterns
demonstrate that the antenna performs well and fulfills our ex-
pectations. This work may help to provide another method of
designing high-directive planar antennas.
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