VO2-Based Reconfigurable Antenna Platform with Addressable Microheater Matrix

This study reports on a reconfigurable antenna platform based on vanadium dioxide (VO2), a phase-change material (PCM) with low transition temperature, integrated with an addressable microheater matrix. For the first time, it is shown that an entire planar antenna can be thermally reconfigured virtually to any pattern by switching the phase of the selected regions of the VO2 layer from insulator to metallic state by indirect thermal stimuli generated by individually addressable nichrome resistive microheaters. Careful selection of the individual pixels to start the phase transition from insulator (OFF) to metallic (ON) state allows creating different antenna patterns with unique resonance properties. Reconfiguring the antenna into different patterns, operating frequency can be tuned from C-band (4-8 GHz) to X-band (8-12 GHz), and S-band (2-4 GHz) frequencies which cover the entire ultra wideband spectrum (3.1-10.6 GHz). The proposed approach provides a promising platform for designing monolithically integrated reconfigurable antennas, radio frequency devices, and circuits for various applications.