A trapezoidal microstrip patch antenna on photonic crystal substrate for high speed THz applications

Terahertz technology opened its wings toward the partially explored electromagnetic spectrum (30-10,000 GHz). This paper presents a novel trapezoidal shape microstrip patch antenna for terahertz regime applications. A thin microstrip line is used to provide the coupling between source and antenna. The proposed antenna is developed to be utilized in the frequency band of 0.88-1.62 THz for high speed applications. The performance of patch antenna is limited due to surface leaky waves beneath; therefore workability of the patch antenna is enhanced by employing photonic crystals in the thick dielectric substrate. It is observed that the return loss, VSWR and gain achieved show enormous improvement. The proposed antenna exhibits a wider bandwidth ranging between 1.2 THz and 1.62 THz. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.