Ferroelectric tunable balanced right- and left-handed transmission lines

The tuning of the dispersion characteristics of a balanced composite right- and left-handed transmission lines is demonstrated at centimeter and millimeter wavelengths. To this aim, coplanar waveguides, periodically loaded by interdigitated capacitances and stublike inductances, were fabricated onto a Ba0.5Sr0.5TiO3 ferroelectric thin film. The scattering parameter measurements show that the lines are left handed from 8 to 18 GHz and right handed above. The results are interpreted by the retrieval of the effective permittivity and permeability, which exhibit Drude-like dispersion characteristics with a magnetic plasma frequency, which can be tuned via the voltage-controlled permittivity variation in the BST thin film.