A Low-Profile All-Dielectric Circularly Polarized Ring Antenna Made of 3-D Printed Zirconia Ceramic

This paper proposes a low-profile circularly polarized ring antenna entirely made of zirconia ceramic. It possesses an all-in-one structure where a ceramic plate with probe feed is connected to the two terminals of a ceramic three-quarter ring. The main part of ring is parallel to the plate with a small gap. The radiation of high-permittivity dielectric waveguide under cut-off region of TM
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mode is here utilized in the proposed antenna. By virtue of 3-D printing technology, the proposed antenna with curly structure can be easily formed. Besides, different from other dielectric antennas with metal ground plane, the proposed antenna is all-dielectric so as to attain a lower radar cross section (RCS). The proposed antenna can also achieve wide impedance and axial ratio bandwidths. Finally, an all-dielectric ring antenna prototype with an axial ratio bandwidth from 5.5 to 6.5 GHz is designed. Its impedance, radiation and scattering characteristics are here investigated.