Design of a linearly polarized metal-only reflectarray using slot-type Phoenix elements

A novel linearly polarized metal-only slot-type Phoenix reflectarray element is proposed. It is able to achieve a full 360° phase coverage and stable responses for different incidence angles. The unique slot-type element design unifies all the elements into a whole piece so that the dielectric substrate is no longer required. A Ku-band reflectarray antenna with a circular aperture of 512 mm in diameter is then designed. The full-wave simulation results show that a gain of 34.0 dB with aperture efficiency of 61.7% can be achieved at the center frequency of 12.5 GHz, and the 1-dB gain bandwidth is 13.6%.