Volume 31, Issue 4 e22570
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Design of high gain Vivaldi antenna with a compound optical lens inspired by metamaterials

Houyuan Cheng

Houyuan Cheng

College of Physical Science and Technology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, PR China

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Lina Hua

Lina Hua

College of Physical Science and Technology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, PR China

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Youcheng Wang

Youcheng Wang

Science and Technology on Complex System Control and Intelligent Agent Cooperation Laboratory, Beijing, PR China

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Helin Yang

Corresponding Author

Helin Yang

College of Physical Science and Technology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, PR China

Correspondence

Helin Yang, College of Physical Science and Technology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan,430079, PR China.

Email: [email protected]

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Taoming Lu

Taoming Lu

College of Physical Science and Technology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, PR China

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First published: 01 February 2021
Citations: 9

Funding information: Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities from China, Grant/Award Number: CCNU20GF006

Abstract

A kind of compound optical lens (COL) inspired by metamaterials whose unit cell is a closed symmetric S-type resonator (CSSR) is designed to enhance the gain and directivity of the antipodal Vivaldi antenna (AVA). COL, composed of a plano-convex lens and a double-convex lens, can generate a very narrow beam with a half-power beamwidth of 11.2° at 12 GHz. Traditional metamaterial lenses can only convert spherical waves into plane waves. Although the gain will increase, the beamwidth of the antenna is still very wide. COL can focus the plane wave transformed from the spherical wave, which makes the radiation beam extremely narrow. The proposed antenna has a −10 dB impedance bandwidth of 169.2% (1.0-12.0 GHz) and a −3 dB gain bandwidth of 133.3% (2.0-10.0 GHz) and a maximum gain enhancement of 5 dBi. The experimental results of the antennas agree with the simulation results. The proposed antenna is eventually a suitable candidate for wireless communications and radar applications.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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