A 3-D Printed Waveguide-Based Linearly Polarized Magnetoelectric Dipole Antenna

This letter presents a waveguide-based linearly polarized magnetoelectric (ME) dipole antenna. The magnetic and electric dipoles are realized by a waveguide aperture and a pair of rectangular patches, respectively. The antenna employs a 3-D printing technique as the manufacturing method. Compared to the conventional ME dipole designs that operate in microwave band, the proposed antenna has a novel structure and exhibits simplified fabrication process. In order to realize the metallic walls of the waveguide structure, a two-step metal deposition technique (sputtering and electroplating) is used to coat the dielectric with copper. To validate the design idea, a prototype is designed and fabricated in X-band for demonstration. Through experiments, it is found that the proposed antenna can achieve a wide impedance bandwidth of 46.8% from 7.2 to 11.6 GHz and a stable gain of 5.4 +/- 1.2 dBi. While the antenna has stable patterns, low cross-polarization and backlobe radiation over the operating frequency band as well.