A Zero Index Based Meta-Lens Loaded Wideband Directive Antenna Combined With Reactive Impedance Surface

In this paper, an aperture efficient wideband high-gain patch antenna is designed using a novel multilayer-based metamaterial structure combined with a reactive impedance surface (RIS)-backed patch antenna. The metamaterial unit cell is a two-layer structure which is stacked one after other to form the overall unit cell. The microscopic behavior of the proposed unit cell has been investigated. This unit cell gives low refractive index over a wide bandwidth with a negligible loss. An RIS-backed patch antenna has been designed in the required frequency band to feed the multilayer zero-index metamaterial medium. The introduction of this surface is to provide unidirectional radiation over a wideband in the zero refractive index region. The proposed antenna gives a 14% fractional bandwidth over the $C$ - and $X$ -bands. The proposed antenna enhances the peak gain of the conventional patch antenna by an amount of 8.5 dB at 8 GHz. Finally, the antenna has been fabricated and its performance is verified experimentally.