achieved with NRZ signals with the use of both schemes of
INTRODUCTION
modulation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank Dr. V. Hagele for the comparisons
with the SOA model. This study is in the framework of E E C
ACTS program (Contract No. AC045, UPGRADE).
REFERENCES
1. C. T. H. F. Liendenbaum. J. J. E. Reid, L. F. Tiemeijer, A. J. Boot,
P. I. Kuindersma. I. Gabitov, and A. Mattheus, "Experimental
Long Haul 1300-nm Soliton Transmission on Standard Single
Mode Fibres Using Quantum Well Laser Amplifier," Proc. Euro-
pean Conference on Optical Comniunication 1993, Florence. Italy.
September 25-29, 1994, pp. 233-236.
2. A. Mecozzi, "Soliton Transmission Control with Semiconductor
Amplifiers," Opt. Lett., Vol. 20. No. 15, 1995. pp. 1616-1618.
3. S. Betti, G. De Marchis. and E. Iannone, "Polarization Modulated
Direct Detection Optical Transmission Systems," J. Lighrwa1.e
Te.cltttol.. VOI. 10. 1992, pp. 1Y85-1997.
1. F. Matera, A. Mecozzi. and M. Settembre. "Light Depolarization
in Long Fiber Links." Electron. Lett.. Vol. 31, No. 6, 1995,
pp. 473-475.
5. F. Matera. M. Romagnoli, and B. Daino, "Alternate Polarization
Soliton Transmission in Standard Dispersion Fibre Links with
No In-Line Controls." Elecfron. Left.. Vol. 31, No. 14. 1995,
pp. 1172-1174.
h. G. P. Agrawal and N. A. Olsson. "Self-phase Modulation and
Spectral Broadening of Optical Pulses in Semiconductor Laser
Amplifiers," lEEE J. Quantum Electron., Vol. 25, No. 11. 1989,
pp. 2297-2306.
7. F. Matera and M. Srttembre, "Comparison of the Performance of
Single-Channel Optically Amplified Transmission Systems," Mi-
croware Opf. Technol. Left., Vol. 10. No. 4, 1995, pp. 207-210.
8. F. Matera and M. Settembre. "Comparison of the Performance of
Optically Amplified Transmission Systems." J. Lighnvai,e Technol..
VOI. 14. No. 1, 1996. pp. 1-12.
Receic,ed 1-12-96
Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, 13/1. 10-12
Q 1996 John Wiley & Sons. Inc.
CCC 0895-2477/96
COMPACT MICROSTRIP PATCH
ANTENNA
Supriyo Dey and Raj Mittra
Electromagnetic Communication Laboratory
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineermg
University of Illinois
Urbana, Illinois 61820
KEY TERMS
Microstrip antenna, small antenna, meander patch antenna, short-
circuited patch antenna
ABSTRACT
Thia article describes the design and dec,elopment of a relatively compact
microstrip patch antenna. At resonance. the lengih of the antenna is
approxitnate!v one-eighfh of the effecticr waL,elength. The currenf distri-
bution on the patch surface has been analyzed with the use of the mefhod
of moments. 0 1996 John Wiky & Sons, Inc.
12 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol 13, No 1, September 1996
1.
Microstrip antennas have a number of advantages over con-
ventional antennas, namely, small size, light weight, low pro-
duction cost, and conformal nature. However, for many appli-
cations, for example, hand-held mobile communication sys-
tems, half-wave microstrip antennas etched on a low-cost
dielectric substrate is still too large to b e accommodated on
the portable phone. A well-known approach to reduce the
size of a half-wave patch to a quarter wave, is to introduce a
shorting wall at one of the radiating edges. Hiraswa and
Haneishi [l] has shown that the length of the patch can be
made sufficiently shorter than a quarter wave by replacing
the shorting wall with a shorting pin at the corner of the
patch.
In this article we present a modification of this design with
a view to reducing the length of the antenna even further.
The length reduction is achieved by meandering the patch,
which causes the effective length of the patch to b e greater
than its physical length. Consequently, for the same length,
the resonant frequency of the new antenna becomes much
lower than that of the patch of a conventional design [l]. In
the following sections we present the design concept, the
experimental results, and the theoretical analysis of the me-
ander patch antenna.
2. ANTENNA DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Figure 1 shows the schematic of the antenna. The antenna is
etched on a substrate of thickness 3.2 mm and a dielectric
constant of 2.6. The patch is shorted to the ground by using a
pin of diameter 0.5 mm, and is fed by a 50-0 coax. The
length and width of the antenna are 3.0 cm and 1.5 cm,
respectively. To observe the effect of the slot length ( I ) on
the resonant frequency, patches with various slot lengths
were fabricated, and the rest of the parameters were left
unchanged. Column 2 in Table 1 show the measured resonant
frequency due to various slot lengths. It is evident from the
table that an increase in the slot length reduces the resonant
frequency of the antenna. Column 3 shows the required
length of a half-wave microstrip patch antenna (HW), which
has the same width, is etched on the same dielectric sub-
strate, and resonates at the same frequency. Column 4 shows
the percentage reduction in the length of the new antenna
compared to the half-wave microstrip antenna. Also, from the
table, it can be easily seen that there is a 9% reduction in the
length of the antenna for a slot length of 12.5 mm, as
compared to the length without the slots. It was also observed
that the width of the slot does not have any significant effect
on the resonant frequency.
I feed point
-shorting pin
I
1.5 an
1
'
Figure 1 Schematic design of the antenna
TABLE 1 Variation of Resonant Frequency of the Antenna 5
I
with Slot Length and the Corresponding Length of Half-Wave
Patch Antenna and Percentage Reduction in the Length of
.O
New Antenna Compared to Half-Wave Patch Antenna
-
Percentage k
Slots Resonant Length Reduction E -5

Length ( 1 ) Frequency for HW (Compared !i

n
(cm) (GHz) (cm) to HW) .Ea -10
B
0.00 1.0750 9.05 66.85 2
0.25 1.0250 9.51 68.45 -15
0.50 1.0125 9.63 68.85
0.75 0.9370 10.43 71.23
-20
1.oo 0.8620 11.36 73.60 -90 -45 0 45 90
1.25 0.8125 12.07 75.15
Angle (deg.)

Figure 4 H-plane radiation pattern of the antenna at 937 MHz

10

6
5
v)
>
4

0.925 0.93 0.935 0.94 0.945 0.95

Frequency (GHz)

Figure 2 VSWR plot of the antenna

For the test case, a patch with a slot length of 7.5 mm was
used to measure the other antenna characteristics. Figure 2
shows the VSWR plot of the antenna. From the plot it is
clear that the VSWR of the antenna is 2.2 at a resonant
frequency of 937 MHz. As is typical of short-circuited mi-
crostrip patch antennas, the impedance bandwidth of the
antenna is very narrow. The 3:l VSWR bandwidth is only 3
MHz.
The E- and H-plane radiation patterns of the antenna at
937 M E are shown in Figures 3 and 4, respectively. The

5 , I Figure 5 Surface current distribution for various slot lengths.

(a) I = 0 mm, (b) 1 = 7.5 mm,(c) I = 12.5 mm

pattern is almost omnidirectional in the E plane; however,

the H-plane pattern does show a lobed pattern near the
horizon. The variation in the radiation patterns in the E and
H planes can be attributed to the size of the ground plane,
which is small.

3. THEORETICAL ANALYSIS
-20 I I
-90 -45 0 45 90 To gain an understanding of the physical behavior of the new
Angle (deg.)
patch antenna, it was analyzed using the method of moments
[2]. The current distribution on the patch surface at reso-
Figure 3 E-plane radiation pattern of the antenna at 937 MHz nance is shown in Figure 5 for three different slot lengths

MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 13, No. 1, September 1996 13
( I = 0 mm, 1 = 7.5 mm, and 1 = 12.5 mm). For a patch
without slots, the current flows primarily in a straight line
from one side to the other. From Figures 5(b) and 5k), it is
clear that the presence of the slots forces the current to
travel through a much longer path. This explains the decrease
in the resonance frequency of the meander patch antenna.
Also, it is evident from the figures that the patch length of
the current flow increases with increasing slot length. This
confirms the experimental observation of the reduction in the
resonant frequency with an increase of the slot length. From
the figures i t is also clear that an increase in the slot width
does not significantly increase the path length to the flow of
the current. This validates the earlier results that the change
in the slot width does not bring any significant change in the
resonance frequency.
4. CONCLUSION
The design of a compact meander patch antenna has been
presented. The length of the antenna is 70% less than that of
a half-wave microstrip patch antenna. It is anticipated that
this design will find application in hand-held communication
systems where light weight and compactness are the most
desirable criteria.
REFERENCES
1. K. Hiraswa and M. Haneishi, Analysis. Design and Measurement of
Sniall and Low-Profile Antennas, Artech House, London, 1992,
Chap. 5.
2. J . R . Mosig, Numerical Techniqice~for Microwac,e und Millimeter-
Wai,e Passive Structures, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1989,
Chap. 3.
Microwave and Optical Technology Letters. 13/I, 12-14
0 1996 John Wiley & Sons. Inc.
CCC 0895-2477/96
SENSITIVITY EVALUATION OF EDFA
PPM SYSTEMS UNDER CHROMATIC
DISPERSION
A. Hussain, J. M. H. Elmirghani, and R. A. Cryan
Department of Electrical Electronic Engineenng and Physics
University of Northumbrla at Newcastle
Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 8ST
KEY TERMS
Optical communication, optical amplifiers, dispersion, PPM
ABSTRACT
An optically preamplified pulse position modulation (PPM) system oper-
ating at 622 Mbit/ s and h = 1.53 p m is analyzed, and is shown to offer
a sensiticQ benefit of 9.2 dB oc,er an equiralent OOK system. Fiber
chromatic dispersion is taken into account and is used to estimate the
receiced pulse shape. Pulse dispersion can potentially induce a significant
performance penalty in PPM system because of the temporal nature of
the PPM format. Thr results show that for a transmitted pulse of
14 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol 13, No 1. September 1996
duration 80 ps, the receiced pulses have full widths at half maximum
(FWHM) of 160 and 320ps forfiber lengths equaling 120 and 240 km,
respectiL,ely. The system sensitivity degradation due to dispersion is
explicitly eilaluated. It is shown that a sensitivivpenal(y of up to 5 dB
can be incurred over the transmission spans considered. 0 1996 John
Mley & sons, Inc.
1. INTRODUCTION
Pulse position modulation (PPM) has been proposed as a
format that can exploit the abundant monomode-fiber band-
width to offer high sensitivity over the optical link. The
typical sensitivity improvement (using p-i-n-FET and
p-i-n-BJT receivers) over direct detection and coherent OOK
systems is in the range of 5-12 dB [l-41. The implications of
the extra sensitivity over a long-haul link or in a multiuser
environment are apparent.
Recently there has been increased theoretical and practi-
cal interest in using optical amplifiers, particularly erbium-
doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA), as front ends to optical
receivers in order to improve the sensitivity [5-71. The use of
erbium-doped optical amplifiers has greatly increased the
transmission distance in optical-fiber communication systems.
In consequence, chromatic dispersion has become one of the
main limiting factors to long-haul transmission at high data
rates. It can produce distortion in the demodulated wave-
form, resulting in intersymbol interference in the received
signal and in a reduction of transmission system performance.
We propose a new hybrid EDFA PPM system and investi-
gate its sensitivity over a dispersive optical-fiber channel. We
demonstrate that such a system can offer up to 9.2-dB sensi-
tivity improvement over a comparable optically preamplified
OOK system. Pulse dispersion has more important conse-
quences in PPM systems because of the temporal nature of
the PPM format, where the pulse position is utilized to
convey the data. Using computer simulation techniques, this
article determines the effects of chromatic dispersion with
fibre length and investigates the behavior of the received
pulse shape with respect to the fiber length. The pulse shape
at the receiver end of the fiber is obtained through mathe-
matical modeling of the dispersive effect of the single-mode
fiber. I t is shown that a sensitivity penalty of up to 5 dB can
be incurred in a transmission span equaling 240 km.The use
of equalization techniques to reduce this penalty is the sub-
ject of further work.
2. FIBER MODELING
The optical signal observed at the output of the fiber, x,,,(t>,
is calculated from x,,(t), with the use of the equivalent
low-pass representation of the transfer function of a single-
mode fibre [8]:
where
1 A2
y --D(A)--B*L. (2)
?I C
B is the bit rate, D is the fiber chromatic dispersion, A is the
operating wavelength, c is the speed of light, L is the fiber
length, and f is the frequency offset from the optical carrier
frequency (f, = c/A) under dc operation of the laser.