Broadband Metamaterial Antenna Using Folded

Parasitic Patch
Seung-Tae Ko, Jeong-Hae Lee
Dept. of Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Hongik University
Seoul 121-791, Korea
jeonglee@hongik.ac.kr
Abstract In this paper, the broadband metamaterial antenna
utilizing zeroth-order resonance (ZOR) mode and TM010 mode is
presented. Employing the folded parasitic patch, the frequency of
TM010 mode can simply be down-shifted to the frequency of ZOR
mode without changing the size of the antenna. Therefore, the
metamaterial patch antenna operates at two modes. As a result,
the 10dB fractional bandwidth of an antenna is measured to be
12.0% and it shows good agreement with the simulated result.
Finally, the excellent radiation efficiencies are measured to be
78% ~ 95% in the whole band.
Keywords-metamaterial; zeroth-roder resonance (ZOR); folded
parasitic patch

I.

INTRODUCTION

Until now, the development of the miniaturized, broadband,

and high efficiency antenna has been considered to be the most
important issue in the modern wireless communication system.
Accordingly, the various miniaturized metamaterial antennas
were presented in the past [1-6]. Especially, using the zerothorder resonance (ZOR) mode which is one of many attractive
properties of the metamaterial, the ZOR antenna can be
designed. The mushroom structure which consists of a patch, a
via, and a ground is a basic structure in order to excite the ZOR
mode. Since the ZOR mode is independent of the physical
length, the size of an antenna can be extremely miniaturized [79]. However, the ZOR antennas suffer from narrow bandwidth
and poor efficiency as they are miniaturized. To overcome
these problems, the ZOR antenna employing a meandered via
and a high permeability substrate was reported [8]. This
antenna also suffers from poor efficiency due to a high material
loss of a high permeability material.
In this paper, the broadband metamaterial antenna using the
folded parasitic patch is presented to obtain broad bandwidth.
In general, there are large differences between the frequency of
ZOR mode and the frequency of TM010 mode for the
conventional mushroom structure. Also, for the conventional
mushroom structure, the ZOR mode and the TM010 mode
cannot be controlled independently. Thus, it is difficult to
combine two modes. However, the folded parasitic patch in this
paper enables to combine the ZOR mode and the TM010 mode
at the same frequency. The structure of the proposed
metamaterial patch antenna will be described in detail. Then,
the measured result will be compared with the simulated result.

II.

BRAODBAND METAMATERIAL PATCH ANTENNA WITH

FOLDED PARASITIC PATCH

The structure of the proposed metamaterial patch antenna is

shown in Fig.1. The structure consists of an outer patch and an
inner mushroom patch. The gap of 0.5mm is inserted around an
inner mushroom patch. The antenna of Fig. 1 based on
RT/duroid5880 (r=2.2) and detail dimensions are as follows:
Wp=15mm, Lp=10mm, Wi=Li=5mm and height of a substrate
(h)=3.175mm.
The simulated input impedance Re(Z11) of a patch antenna
in Fig.1 is shown in Fig. 2. The solid-line of Fig. 2 shows that
the frequency of ZOR mode and the frequency of TM010 mode
occur at 4.44GHz and 7.26GHz, respectively. Note that the
ZOR mode and the TM010 mode depend on the area of an inner
mushroom patch (WiLi) and the length of an outer patch (Lp),
respectively. As shown in the dotted-line, when an inner
mushroom patch in Fig.1 is removed, only the TM010 mode is
excited at the same resonance frequency. If the area (WiLi) of
an inner mushroom patch in Fig.1 is reduced, the frequency of
ZOR mode is up-shifted to the frequency of TM010 mode. Thus,
the ZOR mode and the TM010 mode can be combined and, then,
the broadband metamaterial patch antenna can be designed.
However, since the antenna operates around the frequency of
TM010 mode, the miniaturized antenna cannot be realized.
Therefore, in order to achieve the miniaturized antenna with the
broad bandwidth, the frequency of TM010 mode should be
down-shifted to the frequency of ZOR mode.

Figure 1. Structure of a metamaterial patch antenna without folded

parasitic patch.

This work was supported by Mid-career Researcher Program through

NRF grant funded by the MEST (No. 2010-0013273).

978-1-4244-9561-0/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

1051

AP-S/URSI 2011

Figure 2. Simulated Re(Z11).

Figure 4. Simulated and measured return loss.

Figure 3. Structure of the proposed metamaterial patch antenna with the

folded parasitic patch.

The structure of the proposed metamaterial patch antenna

with the folded parasitic patch is shown in Fig. 3. As shown,
the antenna consists of an outer patch, an inner mushroom
patch, a folded parasitic patch, and a ground plane. In order to
excite wave at an outer patch and an inner mushroom patch, a
coaxial feeding is inserted between two patches. To match the
antenna with 50 SMA connector, a circular gap is inserted
between the patch and the coaxial feeding. The antenna is built
with RT/duroid5880 substrates at upper patch and lower
ground. In the side view of Fig. 3, the folded parasitic patches
are added at both ends of the outer patch. Using the folded
parasitic patch, the frequency of TM010 mode can be downshifted to the frequency of ZOR mode because the frequency of
TM010 mode depends on the length of an outer patch (Lp) and
the length of the parasitic patch (le) similar to a conventional
patch. The detail dimensions of the antenna of Fig. 3 are as
follows: Wp=15mm (0.2050), Lp=10mm (0.1370), Wh=11mm
(0.1510), Lh=6mm (0.0820), Wi=6mm, Li=3.6mm (0.0490),
h=8.14mm (0.1120), and le=6mm when the centre frequency
is 4.11GHz
As shown in Fig. 4, the measured return loss is compared
with the simulated return loss for the antenna of Fig. 3. It can

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Figure 5. Radiation patterns, (a) x-y plane at the ZOR mode, (b) x-y
plane at the TM010 mode.

be confirmed that the ZOR mode and the TM010 mode are
combined. The simulated result shows that the antenna has a
fractional bandwidth (@10dB) of 11% (f =0.46GHz), which

ranges from 3.99GHz to 4.45GHz. The frequency of ZOR

mode and the frequency of TM010 mode are 4.04GHz and
4.31GHz, respectively. The measured fractional bandwidth
(@10dB) is 12% (f =0.49GHz), which ranges from 3.87GHz
to 4.36GHz. The frequency of ZOR mode and the frequency of
TM010 mode are measured to be 3.93GHz and 4.21GHz,
respectively. If the antenna has an outer patch only, the
fractional bandwidth of that is 4.9%. Therefore, the broadband
metamaterial patch antenna is achieved and the measured result
shows good agreement with the simulated result.
As shown in Fig. 5, the radiation patterns of the antenna are
plotted. Fig. 5(a) and (b) are the radiation pattern at the ZOR
mode and TM010 mode, respectively. As shown in Fig. 5(a), the
antenna has the omni-directional radiation pattern and the
maximum gain is 0.61dBi at the ZOR mode. At the TM010
mode, the maximum gain is -0.47dBi. Finally, the radiation
efficiencies are measured to be 78% ~ 95% in the whole band.
III.

Finally, in the whole band, the radiation efficiencies of the

proposed antenna measured to be 78% ~ 95%.
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CONCLUSION

In this paper, the broadband metamaterial antenna with the

folded parasitic patch is proposed. Using the folded parasitic
patch, the frequency of TM010 mode simply can be downshifted to the frequency of ZOR mode without changing the
size of the antenna. Thus, the ZOR mode and the TM010 mode
can be combined and the miniaturized metamaterial patch
antenna with broad bandwidth is designed. As a result, the
antenna is measured to have the fractional bandwidth (@10dB)
of 12.0%, showing a good agreement with the simulation result.

1053

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