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Experimental investigations on electronically tunable microstrip antennas
Author(s) -
Jose K. A.,
Varadan V. K.,
Varadan V. V.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
microwave and optical technology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.304
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1098-2760
pISSN - 0895-2477
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1098-2760(19990205)20:3<166::aid-mop5>3.0.co;2-r
Subject(s) - materials science , optoelectronics , microstrip antenna , microstrip , substrate (aquarium) , microwave , dielectric , antenna (radio) , biasing , patch antenna , voltage , electrical engineering , electronic engineering , engineering , telecommunications , oceanography , geology
The frequency tunability of a microstrip antenna on barium strontium titanate (BST) substrate is presented in this paper. This investigation has been made as a first step toward the realization of an electronically tunable microstrip antenna, taking advantage of the voltage‐tunable dielectric substrate. It is already established that the change in dielectric constant of these substrate material is more than 50%, depending on the stoichiometric composition of BST and the bias voltage. It is also possible to control the dielectric constant during processing of the substrate in the range of 15–1500 with some tradeoff in tunability. A microstrip patch antenna is printed on the tunable substrate, and the radiation performance was studied for different bias conditions; frequency tuning is demonstrated experimentally. The antenna frequency can be changed by varying the applied dc voltage. To take further advantage of the tuning range of the substrates, it is necessary to design and develop high‐performance dc‐blocking circuits. ©1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 20: 166–169, 1999.