A High-Gain Circularly Polarized Antenna Using Zero-Index Metamaterial

In this letter, a novel high-gain circularly polarized (CP) antenna based on the zero-index metamaterial (ZIM) is presented. A square ring with two asymmetrical splits is used as a unit cell to achieve high gain and circular polarization. The 9 × 9 periodic array unit cells act as an aperture efficient focusing metasurface lens and polarization converter for a primary source antenna. The focusing effect of the ZIM enhances the gain of the microstrip patch antenna placed above it by an amount of 5-6 dB. Also, the ZIM converts the linearly polarized wave emitted by the patch antenna into circularly polarized waves. The circular polarization is achieved by optimizing the two split gaps on the ring of the unit cell, which gives two orthogonal polarizations with the required phase. The proposed design is fabricated and verified experimentally. The prototype has measured impedance bandwidth from 7.04 to 7.68 GHz. The 3 dB axial ratio is achieved from 7.11 to 7.56 GHz, with a peak gain of 12.31 dBic at 7.45 GHz. The gain of around 11.5 dBic is achieved over the entire CP bandwidth with a good cross-polarization level.