Dipole Antenna Above EBG Substrate for Local SAR Reduction

This letter investigates the performance of a dipole antenna above an electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) substrate to realize a low specific absorption rate (SAR) antenna. The frequency band considered is 3.5 GHz, which is assigned to fourth-generation mobile communications. One of the motivations for this proposal is that the size of the EBG substrate can be small enough for a handset. The dipole antenna above the EBG substrate was found to reduce the local SAR in a cubic head model by 84% as compared to the local SAR of a perfect electric conductor. The radiation efficiency was also improved by 10%. These results were also confirmed for a realistic head model.