Millimeter-wave low-loss on-chip metamaterial for 5G communication based on non-periodic composite right-/left-handed transmission line

作者：Shen, Guangxu; Zhang, Chenyang; Feng, Wenjie^*; Che, Wenquan

来源：Applied Physics Letters, 2023, 122(21): 211704.

DOI：10.1063/5.0149039

• NEGATIVE PHASE-VELOCITY
• LOW-PROFILE
• CRLH-TL
• COMPACT

This Letter reports a millimeter-wave low-loss on-chip metamaterial based on a concept of a non-periodic composite right-/left-handed (CRLH) transmission line (TL). Compared with a classic periodic unit cell, a non-periodic CRLH TL is proposed to obtain higher transmittance and better reflectivity. First, based on the CRLH TL theory, the LC values of the periodic transmission line were calculated. Second, T-i factors were derived using Chebyshev low-pass filter prototypes and the bandpass transformation theory. Third, these values were then used to calculate the factors of the non-periodic structure, which was eventually implemented using lumped elements. By analyzing the dispersion property, the proposed non-periodic CRLH metamaterial features both right-handed (forward wave) and left-handed (backward wave) propagating modes, which accounts for its wide bandwidth. For demonstration, a gallium arsenide-based integrated passive device process is adopted. As its main advantages, the fabricated metamaterial shows a high and flat transmission with minimum insertion loss of 0.68 dB at 30.2 GHz, and a low reflectivity better than -10 dB from 14 to 51 GHz of which the fraction bandwidth is over 120%.

• 单位
  南京邮电大学