Tuneable millimetre-wave leaky wave antenna based on Air-bridged Schottky diodes

A novel beam-steering antenna based on airbridged Schottky diodes is proposed for emerging millimetre wave technologies such as 5G/6G. The primary radiating structure is a metasurface-based leaky-wave antenna (LWA), including a tuneable high impedance surface (HIS) ground plane. The HIS phase variation is accomplished by varying the capacitance of air-bridged Schottky diodes embedded into the periodic elements of the HIS. The proposed antenna operates at 43.5 GHz with a continuous beam scanning of 20°. The fast (in the order of ns) and continuous beam steering are the key advantages of the proposed metasurface-based antenna. Simulations have been carried out using CST Microwave Studio to evaluate the performance of the beam-steering antenna.