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

• Trapezoidal microstrip patch antenna: with implantation of photonic crystals in the substrate layer to realize photonic band gaps is designed.
• Photonic crystals: can be achieved by implanting the different materials such as metallic, dielectric and ferromagnetic in the substrate cavities.
• PBG structures: have been shown to suppress surface waves where they would present on otherwise normal ground planes.
• THz antenna: for broadband ultra-high speed 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.

(a) Proposed antenna on a periodic PBG. (b) Proposed antenna on a surrounding PBG.Figure optionsDownload high-quality image (117 K)Download as PowerPoint slide