Implementation and measurement of a microstrip square planar 36-way metamaterial power divider

Power divider has found many applications in antenna array, amplifiers, and microwave systems. In recent years, metamaterials that display left-handed (LH) propagation behavior have been extensively investigated and applied to microwave devices. These devices are mostly based on one-dimensional (1D) left-handed and right-handed (RH) transmission lines. One phenomenon that can be obtained from metamaterials is propagation with infinite wavelength, where the waves travel along a finite length structure with zero phase shift. Infinite wavelength in 1D structure has been demonstrated in, and exploited in compact zero phase shifters and power dividers. Recently, the 2D metamaterial structure with infinite wavelength is studied by properly arranging LH and RH unit cells in a checker-board tessellation to design a 20-way squared-shaped power divider. In this paper, a 36-way square-shaped 2D power divider using a novel structure with distinct RH and LH regions is implemented. Its RH and LH unit cells with zero phase shift are analyzed and designed. The experimental results of a 36-way square-shaped power divider are given.