Liquid Crystal Leaky-Wave Antennas With Dispersion Sensitivity Enhancement

A novel design, fabrication, and packaging technology is proposed for liquid crystal (LC)-based beam-scanning leaky-wave antennas (LWAs). Different from conventional ones, extra dispersion sensitivity enhancement (DSE) components are introduced to increase the slope of effective phase constant versus frequency of LWAs and, hence, the beam scanning range. CST MW Studio software package is used to validate the design method. It is shown that, by adding the DSE components, the electrical beam scanning range is extended by more than 56% in the Ku satellite communication band, where good impedance matching and balanced condition are kept for both extreme tuning states of LCs. Prototypes of the designed LC-composite right/left-handed LWAs with and without the DSE components are fabricated and measured. The fabrication methodology incorporating printed circuit board and precision metal processing technology ensures the mechanical stability, flexible design, perfect packaging, and low cost. Finally, the feature-selective validation technique validates that the measured and simulated results are in good agreement.