High-Gain Metasurface in Polyimide On-Chip Antenna Based on CRLH-TL for Sub-Terahertz Integrated Circuits

Alibakhshikenari, Mohammad; Virdee, Bal S.; See, Chan Hwang; A. Abd-Alhameed, Raed; Falcone, Francisco; Limiti, Ernesto

Abstract

This paper presents a novel on-chip antenna using standard CMOS-technology based on metasurface implemented on two-layers polyimide substrates with a thickness of 500μm. The aluminium ground-plane with thickness of 3μm is sandwiched between the two-layers. Concentric dielectric-rings are etched in the ground-plane under the radiation patches implemented on the top-layer. The radiation patches comprise concentric metal-rings that are arranged in a 3×3 matrix. The antennas are excited by coupling electromagnetic energy through the gaps of the concentric dielectric-rings in the ground-plane using a microstrip feedline created on the bottom polyimide-layer. The open-ended feedline is split in three-branches that are aligned under the radiation elements to couple the maximum energy. In this structure, the concentric metal-rings essentially act as series left-handed capacitances CL that extend the effective aperture area of the antenna without affecting its dimensions, and the concentric dielectric rings etched in the ground-plane act as shunt left-handed inductors LL, which suppress the surface-waves and reduce the substrates losses that leads to improved bandwidth and radiation properties. The overall structure behaves like a metasurface that is shown to exhibit a very large bandwidth of 0.350-0.385THz with an average radiation gain and efficiency of 8.15dBi and 65.71%, respectively. It has dimensions of 6×6×1mm3 that makes it suitable for on-chip implementation.

Citation

Alibakhshikenari, M., Virdee, . B. S., See, C. H., A. Abd-Alhameed, R., Falcone, . F., & Limiti, E. (2020). High-Gain Metasurface in Polyimide On-Chip Antenna Based on CRLH-TL for Sub-Terahertz Integrated Circuits. Scientific Reports, 10(1), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61099-8

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 20, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Mar 9, 2020
• Publication Date: 2020
• Deposit Date: Feb 20, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 9, 2020
• Electronic ISSN: 2045-2322
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 10
• Issue: 1
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61099-8
• Keywords: On-chip antenna, terahertz (THz), metasurface, metamaterials, polyimide substrate, electromagnetic coupling, composite right/left-handed transmission line (CRLH-TL), wide bandwidth, system-on-chip (SoC), artificial magnetic conductor (AMC)
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2574980