Bandwidth improvement of reflectarrays using single-layered double concentric circular ring elements

Abstract

In an effort to improve the bandwidth of the single layer reflectarray, this paper investigates the use of double concentric circular ring elements arranged in a range of sub-wavelength grids on a single layer of substrate. Compared to the traditional λ/2 grid arrangements, when the radiating elements are arranged in grids less than λ/2, the reflected phase is more uniform over a wider frequency bands when radiating elements' parameters are varied; albeit with a reduced reflected phase range. The double concentric circular ring elements used here also allow an additional degree-of-freedom to improve the bandwidth. A comprehensive investigation on reflectarrays' performance with various grid spacings is conducted and the trade-off between the reflectarray gain and bandwidth is also discussed. Based on the concentric ring element, four offset-fed 0:43m×0:43m reflectarrays centered at 10 GHz with various element periodicities, namely λ/2, λ/3, λ/4 and λ/5 grids, are designed and developed. The measured results show that among the four reflectarrays, the one with λ/4 grid spacing achieves the broadest 2-dB gain bandwidth of 33% with an aperture efficiency of 36.2%.