Enhancing 5G propagation into vehicles and buildings using optically transparent and polarisation insensitive metasurfaces over wide-incidence angles.

This article introduces two transmissive metasurfaces applied to normal windows, aiming to improve the 5G outdoor-to-indoor (O2I) coverage. These windows can be utilized in various settings, such as vehicles or buildings. The proposed unit cells, designed to be wide-incident angle and polarization insensitive, are implemented in both single-glazing and double-glazing glasses, arranged in a periodic structure to form the transmission surfaces. Both metasurfaces maintain optical transparency by incorporating Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) as the conductive element in each unit cell. These engineered transmission surfaces enhance the 5G signal indoor coverage at the 3.5 GHz band across a broad range of incident angles. While multi-layer structures typically exhibit heightened sensitivity to the angle of incidence, the proposed two-layered transmissive surfaces demonstrate substantial angular stability, reaching up to 65 and 75 degrees for double- and single-glazed glass, respectively. To achieve this wide and stable angular response, evolutionary optimization techniques were employed to fine-tune the proposed unit cells. Both designs exhibit a high transmission coefficient across the operating frequency for a variety of incident angles, surpassing those reported in the existing literature. Experimental evaluations of the fabricated prototypes indicate that both metasurfaces hold significant potential for enhancing signal propagation into buildings and vehicles.

Miniaturized V-band circularly polarized leaky-wave antenna with continuous radiation coverage using modified waveguide and metasurface CSRRs.

A miniaturized V-band leaky-wave antenna (LWA) with circular polarization and backward-broadside-forward radiation based on a modified half-mode substrate integrated waveguide (M-HMSIW) is presented. The proposed M-HMSIW structure employs broadside coupled complementary split ring resonators to replace metallic vias, resulting in low-cost and fully-planar fabrication advantages over conventional HMSIWs. Each unit cell of the proposed LWA consists of an M-HMSIW in combination with two horizontal stubs and a cross-shaped complementary electric LC slot to provide a proper circular polarization with a composite right/left-handed property. Using this structure, the balanced condition can be obtained for the unit cell; hence a continuous backward-to-forward scanning, including broadside, is achieved. As a result, the proposed LWA with a radiator length of only 3.8 λ0 provides wide-angle beam scanning from - 53° to + 54° over the frequency range of 61.2 GHz to 73.4 GHz, while maintaining an excellent circular polarization between - 25° and 25°. The maximum gain of the LWA is 11.1 dB which is satisfactory, considering its compactness. The antenna's performance is experimentally verified, and close agreement between the simulations and measurements is observed.

Controllable hybrid plasmonic integrated circuit.

In this paper, a controllable hybrid plasmonic integrated circuit (CHPIC) composed of hybrid plasmonic waveguide (HPW)-based rhombic nano-antenna, polarization beam splitter, coupler, filter, and sensor has been designed and investigated for the first time. In order to control the power into a corresponding input port, a graphene-based 1 × 3 power splitter with switchable output has been exploited. The functionality of each device has been studied comprehensively based on the finite element method and the advantages over state-of-the-art have been compared. Moreover, the effect of connection of CHPIC to the photonic and plasmonic waveguides has been studied to exhibit the capability of variety excitation methods of the CHPIC. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed CHPIC connected to inter/intra wireless transmission links has been investigated. The wireless transmission link consists of two HPW-based nano-antennas as transmitter and receiver with the maximum gain and directivity of 10 dB and 10.2 dBi, respectively, at 193.5 THz. The suggested CHPIC can be used for applications such as optical wireless communication and inter/intra-chip optical interconnects.

High isolation circularly polarized in-band full-duplex anisotropic dielectric resonator antenna.

A novel high-isolation, monostatic, circularly polarized (CP) simultaneous transmit and receive (STAR) anisotropic dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) is presented. The Proposed antenna is composed of two identical but orthogonally positioned annular sectoral anisotropic dielectric resonators. Each circularly polarized (CP) resonator consists of alternating stacked dielectric layers of relative permittivities of 2 and 15 and is excited by a coaxial probe from the two opposite ends to have left and right-hand CP. Proper element spacing and a square absorber are placed between the resonators to maximize Tx/Rx isolation. Such a structure provides an in-band full-duplex (IBFD) CP-DRA system. Measurement results exhibit high Tx/Rx isolation better than 50 dB over the desired operating bandwidth (5.87-5.97 GHz) with a peak gain of 5.49 and 5.08 dBic for Ports 1 and 2, respectively.

A metasurface-based electronically steerable compact antenna system with reconfigurable artificial magnetic conductor reflector elements.

Beyond 5G networks would require newer technologies to deliver a smarter network. In accordance with these requirements, an electronically steerable compact antenna system capable of beam-switching in the azimuth plane is proposed. The design uses a monopole antenna as the main radiator surrounded by metasurface-based electronically reconfigurable reflector elements designed for the sub-6GHz range. The reflector elements use a reconfigurable capacitively loaded loop (CLL) which can be electronically activated to work as an artificial magnetic conductor (AMC). The design offers a digitally controllable directional radiation pattern covering all 360° in the azimuth plane with a step-size of 30°, a directional gain of ≥ 4.98 dBi and a high front-to-back lobe ratio (FBR) of ≥ 14.9 dB. The compact and modular nature of the design combined with the use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components and 3D-printing makes the design low-cost and easier to integrate with various internet of thing (IoT) applications.

Metasurface-based THz reflectarray antenna with vortex multiplexing and beam-steering capabilities for future wireless communications.

This article investigates the unexplored potentials of vortices or orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams using the low-cost and high-gain dielectric reflectarray antennas (RAs) at the terahertz (THz) band. It proposes a paradigm to enable 3D beam-steering or OAM multiplexing by a single structure via tilted OAM beams. That, in turn, requires reaching the maximal attainable angles either to send multiple beams to different receivers or to focus the OAM beams of different modes in a desired direction. For this reason, two concepts are addressed in this work: (i). generating a single 3D steered OAM beam and (ii) producing multiple off-centered OAM beams with different modes. A volumetric unit cell is adopted to be accurately tuned through the aperture to steer the generated beams towards the desired direction(s). The proposed paradigm can be utilized to produce RAs with beam-steering or OAM multiplexing capabilities as candidates for THz indoor communications.

Guided-wave manipulation in SIW H-plane horn antenna by combining phase correction and holographic-based leakage.

A hybrid technique is proposed to manipulate the field distribution in a substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) H-plane horn to enhance its radiation characteristics. The technique comprises two cascaded steps to govern the guided waves in the structure. The first step is to correct the phase of fields and form a quasi-uniform distribution in the flare section so that the gain increases and side-lobe-level (SLL) decreases. This is obtained by loading the structure with a novel modulated metal-via lens. Field expansion on the radiating aperture of the SIW H-plane horn generates backward surface waves on both broad walls which increases the backlobe. In the second step, these backward surface waves are recycled and directed forward with the aid of holography theory. This is achieved by adding a couple of dielectric slabs with holographic-based patterns of metallic strips on both broad walls. With this step, the backlobe is reduced and the endfire gain is further increased. Using the proposed technique, the structure is designed and fabricated to operate at [Formula: see text] GHz which simultaneously improves the measured values of gain to 11.65 dBi, H-plane SLL to [Formula: see text] dB, and front-to-back ratio to 17.02 dB.

Novel wideband circularly polarized DRA with squint-free radiation characteristics.

A new single-fed circularly polarized dielectric resonator antenna (CP-DRA) without beam squint is presented. The DRA comprises an S-shaped dielectric resonator (SDR) with a metalized edge and two rectangular dielectric resonators (RDRs) blocks. Horizontal extension section is applied as an extension of the SDR, and a vertical-section is placed in parallel to the metallic edge. A vertical coaxial probe is used to excite the SDR and the vertical RDR blocks through an S-shaped metal element and a small rectangular metal strip. The two added RDRs that form an L-shaped DR improve the radiation characteristics and compensate for the beam squint errors. A wideband CP performance is achieved due to the excitation of several orthogonal modes such as [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text]. The experimental results demonstrate an impedance bandwidth of approximately [Formula: see text] (3.71-7.45 GHz) and a 3-dB axial-ratio (AR) bandwidth of about [Formula: see text] (3.72-6.53 GHz) with a stable broadside beam achieving a measured peak gain of about [Formula: see text]. Furthermore, a 100% correction in beam squint value from [Formula: see text] to [Formula: see text] with respect to the antenna boresight is achieved.