Design and analysis of a 1 x 2 microstrip patch antenna array based on periodic and aperiodic photonic crystals in terahertz

In terahertz (THz), high gain antennas are required to overcome the atmospheric attenuation and path losses, for this aim the antenna arrays are helpful. In this paper, we designed and analyzed six terahertz microstrip patch antenna arrays based on different substrates, including homogeneous, periodic photonic crystals and five new aperiodic photonic crystals substrates in the frequency range of 0.5-0.8 THz, which have applications in the next generation wireless communication technologies such as imaging, sensing and detection. The proposed antenna arrays are mounted on a thick polyimide substrate where each of the modified photonic crystal substrates is divided into several sets of perforated air cylinder holes where each set had its particular radius. The simulation has been performed using CST microwave studio for the proposed antenna arrays which resonated around 0.65 THz and showed high radiation characteristics compared to the conventional antenna array. The highest radiation characteristics were achieved by antenna array 6 which is designed based on aperiodic photonic crystals, which obtained at the resonance frequency of 0.66 THz a very low return loss of -92.89 dB, larger bandwidth greater than 282 GHz, high gain of 11.77 dBi and radiation efficiency of 87.63 %. Whereas, the conventional antenna array offered at the resonance frequency of 0.635 THz -29.73 dB, 62.81 GHz, 8.47 dBi and 84.21 %, respectively. Finally, the link budget analysis was discussed by estimating the total signal loss.