Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Moscow, Russia, August 18–21, 2009 1087

Annular Ring Microstrip Patch Antenna on a Double Dielectric

Anisotropic Substrate
C. F. L. Vasconcelos1 , S. G. Silva1 , M. R. M. L. Albuquerque1 ,
J. R. S. Oliveira2 , and A. G. d’Assunção1
1
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), 59078-970 Natal, RN, Brazil
2
Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica do Rio Grande do Norte (CEFET-RN)
59015-000 Natal, RN, Brazil

Abstract— This paper presents a full-wave analysis of microstrip antennas with annular ring
patches printed on double dielectric anisotropic substrates. The problem is formulated in Hankel
transform domain. Green’s functions are determined by application of Hertz vector potentials
formulation. Galerkin’s method and Parseval’s theorem are used to obtain the resonant frequen-
cies. Numerical results are presented and discussed for the resonant frequencies and radiation
patterns.
1. INTRODUCTION
There are many commercial applications such as mobile radio and wireless communications that
use patch antennas. The interest in designing of such microstrip antenna has increased because of
light weight, easy production, conformability, and so forth. In this class of antennas, the annular-
ring microstrip antennas exhibit interesting features associated with the annular ring patch. For
a given frequency, these antennas, when operating in the fundamental mode, have smaller size as
compared to the rectangular or circular patch antennas [1–4]. This characteristic allows the antenna
elements in array designs to be more compacted, favoring the flexibility and the miniaturization
of the antenna arrays. The small size is an important requirement for portable communication
equipment, such as global positioning satellite (GPS) receivers. Moreover, when compared to
the circular patch antenna, the annular ring microstrip antenna has less stored energy and larger
bandwidth [5–9].
Much of the previous work on annular-ring microstrip antenna has been devoted to antennas on
isotropic substrates. However, many materials used in microstrip structures have some degree of
natural anisotropy, or unintended anisotropy due to material processing. These materials provide
flexibility and accurate in integrated circuit design and can be used to overcome patch antennas
limitations imposed by the dielectric substrates [1, 4].
It is the aim of this work to perform an accurate and efficient analysis of annular-ring microstrip
antennas on double uniaxial anisotropic substrates, as well as to perform the analyses for annular
ring microstrip antennas on a single layer substrate and on a suspended substrate, as particular
cases. The analysis uses the full-wave formulation by means of the Hertz vector potentials method
in the Hankel transform domain. The dyadic Green function and Galerkin’s method are used to
determine the resonant frequencies and radiation patterns [3].
The analysis for suspended annular ring microstrip antenna shows that various parameters of
the annular ring patch antenna depend on the thickness of the air gap between the anisotropic
substrate and the ground plane. Instead of controlling the resonance frequency by changing the
radii of annular ring patch, it is also possible to adjust the antenna resonant frequency by varying
the height of the air layer thickness.
2. THEORY
The geometry under consideration is shown in Figure 1. The antenna substrate consists of two
↔
anisotropic dielectric layers (regions 2 and 3) having permittivity ε i (i = 2, 3) and permeability µ0
with optical axis normal to the patch. Region 1 is air-filled with permittivity ε0 and permeability
µ0 . The annular ring patch has inner radius r1 and outer radius r2 .
Starting from the Maxwell’s equations in source-free region characterized by µ = µ0 and uniaxial
anisotropic substrate with the optical axis along the z-direction, the electric permittivity tensor is
given as [3]:
" #
ερρi 0 0
↔
ε = ε0 0 εφφi 0 (1)
0 0 εzzi
1088 PIERS Proceedings, Moscow, Russia, August 18–21, 2009

Figure 1: Annular ring microstrip patch antenna on double dielectric anisotropic substrate.

where εzzi is the permittivity component along the optical axis, and ερρi = εφφi are perpendicular
to it (i = 2, 3).
The Hertz vector potentials are expressed as follows [2, 3]:

~πe = πei~az , ~πh = πhi~az . (2)

The fields are assumed to have harmonic time dependence of the type exp(jωt) and are derived
from Maxwell’s equations, in terms of the electric (~πe ) and magnetic (~πh ) Hertz vector potentials
oriented in the z-direction [5]. The electric and magnetic fields are given as:

E~ = −jωµ0 ∇ × ~πhi + ω 2 µ0 ε0~πei + ε0 ∇ (∇ · ~πei ) (3)

ερρi
~ = jωε0 ∇ × ~πei + ∇ (∇ · ~πhi ) − ∇2~πhi
H (4)
The Hertz vector potentials should satisfy the following wave equations for TE and TM modes:
µ ¶
2 2 εzzi − ερρi ∂ 2 πei
∇ πei + kei πei + =0 (5)
ερρi ∂z 2

∇2 πhi + khi
2
πhi = 0 (6)
√ √
with kei = ω µ0 ε0 εzzi , khi = ω µ0 ε0 ερρi . (7)
It is useful to point out that if ερρi = εφφi = εzzi = 1, the wave equations in the air region can
be easily obtained under the condition that the field components vanish at infinity.
Considering the antenna structure symmetry, Hertz potentials πei and πhi can be written as [3, 6]:
Z ∞
πe,hi (ρ, φ, z) = ejnφ π̃e,hi (α, z) Jn (αρ) αdα, (8)
0
where π̃e,hi (α, z) are the Hankel transform of πe,hi and Jn (αρ) is the Bessel function of first kind
and order n.
On the conducting patch plane, z = d23 (Figure 1), by imposing the boundary conditions, the
transformed electric field components are written as functions of the transformed current density
components allowing the determination of the impedance matrix, in the Hankel domain. The
matrix equation is taken in the form [4, 6]:
· ¸ · ¸· ¸
Ẽx Z̃11 Z̃12 J˜x
= , (9)
Ẽz Z̃21 Z̃22 J˜z
Following, Parseval’s theorem and Galerkin’s method are used to obtain the determinantal
equation that enables the numerical calculation of the resonant frequencies.
Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Moscow, Russia, August 18–21, 2009 1089

3. RESULTS
Results for suspended annular ring microstrip antenna on sapphire substrate are shown in Figures 2
and 3. The anisotropic substrate is separated from the ground plane by an air-filled layer (εr3 = 1).
Figure 2 shows the resonant frequency against the air gap thickness for various inner and outer
radii of the annular ring patch. It is seen that the operating frequency increases with the air layer
thickness for a given value of patch size, however, it depends inversely on the patch size for a
given air gap width d3 . Radiation pattern for Eθ field component is shown in Figure 3 for different
values of the air gap thickness. It is verified that an increase in the air gap thickness improves the
directivity of the antenna.

Figure 2: Resonant frequency versus air gap thickness Figure 3: Radiation pattern (Eθ ) versus air gap
for different values of patch radius. thickness: (1) d3 = 0.1 cm, (2) d3 = 0.3 cm, and
(3) d3 = 0.5 cm.

Figure 4: Resonant frequency versus air gap thickness Figure 5: Radiation pattern (Eθ ) for different
for different anisotropic dielectric substrates. anisotropic dielectric substrates.

Figure 4 depicts the influence of the air gap thickness on the resonant frequency of an annular ring
microstrip patch for three anisotropic dielectric substrates: boron nitride (εzz2 = 3.4, ερρ2 = εφφ2 =
5.12), epsilam-10 (εzz2 = 10.3, ερρ2 = εφφ2 = 13), and sapphire (εzz2 = 11.6, ερρ2 = εφφ2 = 9.4).
The substrate has thickness d2 = 0.159 cm and the air gap width is varied from 0.1 cm to 0.5 cm. As
it can be seen, the resonant frequency reduces considerably when the dielectric substrate changes
from boron nitride to epsilam-10, and this is in contrast to what happens when the medium changes
from epsilam-10 to sapphire. Also it is observed that the resonant frequency increases with the air
gap thickness. The corresponding radiation pattern for Eθ field is shown in Figure 5. It is observed
1090 PIERS Proceedings, Moscow, Russia, August 18–21, 2009

that when the annular ring patch is supported by boron nitride substrate, the antenna exhibits an
increase in its directivity.
Figure 6 shows results of the resonant frequency against the anisotropy ratio (nρ /nz = (ερρ2 /εzz2 )1/2 )
for an annular ring microstrip patch printed on single anisotropic layer. The results are obtained for
a fixed value of ερρ2 , while the parameter εzz2 varies. Results for an isotropic substrate are chosen
by setting nρ /nz = 1. It can be noted that the resonant frequency increases with the anisotropy
ratio. Also, it is also seen that the resonant frequency shifts to a higher frequency as the ερρ2
parameter value decreases.

Figure 6: Resonant frequency versus anisotropy ratio nρ /nz for different ερρ2 .

4. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has described an analysis of the behavior of the annular ring microstrip antenna sup-
ported by anisotropic dielectric material. Results have been presented for resonant frequencies and
radiation patterns. Our simulations agree well with those presented in [6] and [7]. It is shown that
anisotropy plays an important role in the designing of microstrip antennas and cannot be neglected.
It is also found that the resonant frequency of the suspended annular ring microstrip patch antenna
can be tuned by controlling the air gap thickness variation.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We thank the Brazilian Research Agencies CNPq and CAPES for partial financial support.
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