Performance analysis of classical and phase-corrected electromagnetic band gap resonator antennas with all-dielectric superstructures

Classical electromagnetic band gap resonator antennas (ERA) have non-uniform aperture-phase distributions, which result in non-optimal antenna performance. The authors discuss how the aperture-phase distributions of classical one-dimensional (1D) ERAs can be enhanced by using novel all-dielectric phase correcting structures (PCS) and then employ these PCSs to design high-performance phase-corrected ERAs. The authors present a detailed qualitative and quantitative comparison of several phase-corrected and classical 1D ERAs that employ a stack of identical unprinted dielectric slabs, and discuss performance figures such as aperture-phase distributions, peak directivity/gain, 3 dB directivity bandwidth and aperture efficiency. A prototype of one phase-corrected ERA made out of high-permittivity (Rogers TMM10) dielectric material was fabricated and key measured results are presented. It is found that the phase-corrected ERA has higher aperture efficiency and larger gain-bandwidth and bandwidth-apertureefficiency products due to phase correction, making it suitable for wideband applications that require one antenna with directivity >20 dBi.