3D Printed Artificial Metamaterial Substrates for Antenna Applications

In this paper, a design of a linear-to-circular polarization converter based on a 3D printed anisotropic metamaterial substrate (AMS) is presented. The AMS is a stack of thin sheets of PLA material, with air gaps in between, placed over a ground plane. This produces a metamaterial structure composed of periodic anisotropic unit cells, enabling the conversion of a linearly polarised (LP) incident wave to a circular polarised (CP) reflected wave. Using the AMS as a substrate, CP antenna applications are proposed operating within the Ku-band reducing the complexity of designing/feeding and fabricating of the primary antenna hence this is particularly important for higher frequencies.