Bandwidth enhancement of a microstrip antenna array using magneto-dielectric polymer substrate (PDMS-Fe3O4)

In this paper, polymer magneto-dielectric (PDMS-Fe
₃
O
₄
) is proposed as a new substrate for multilayer microstrip antenna array for enhancement of bandwidth, gain, and overall efficiency. Nanoparticles of iron oxide (Fe
₃
O
₄
) have been composited with polymer matrix of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to build up the polymer magneto-dielectric layer (PDMS-Fe
₃
O
₄
). Polymer magneto-dielectric (PDMS-Fe
₃
O
₄
) layer was covered by pure polymer PDMS layers to provide the proposed antenna array with flexibility features. The simulation results of the proposed multilayered antenna array show an excellent enhancement in term of bandwidth (up to 2.416 GHz) and improvement in the efficiency of the antenna array compared to the conventional substrates FR-4 and Rogers.