A High-Gain Broadband Gradient Refractive Index Metasurface Lens Antenna

The design, simulation, and measurement results of a high-gain broadband gradient refractive index (GRIN) planar lens fed by an antipodal exponential taper slot antenna (ATSA) are presented. As a constituent part of this lens, a novel nonresonant metamaterial unit cell, composed of bilayer triple rectangular rings, is proposed and its equivalent circuit model is developed and described. It is shown that, by utilizing this element, stronger capacitive couplings between adjacent metallic layers are realized resulting in a large refractive index variation of about 2.5, and hence, a thin lens with a thickness of 0.38 lambda(0), where lambda(0) is the wavelength at 9.5 GHz. In addition, since the unit cell is designed to resonate at higher frequencies, its refractive index response is smoothly increased over a broad frequency range and this considerably enhances the operating bandwidth of the lens. The achieved measured results demonstrate a broad matching and -3 dB gain bandwidths of 52% (7-12 GHz) and 65% (7-13.2 GHz), respectively. Furthermore, this lens offers a high aperture efficiency of 50% (21.2 dB gain) at the center frequency, and its sidelobe and cross-polarization levels are less than -20 dB and -26 dB across the entire matched band, respectively.