Influence Analysis of Popular Dielectric Materials for Cellular Phones on 5G mm-Wave Antenna Performance

The influences of popular dielectric materials, such as plastic, glass, and ZrO
₂
ceramic, for cellular phones on the fifth generation mobile communications (5G) millimeterwave (mm-Wave) antenna performance are analyzed and compared in this study. A 28-GHz 2 × 2 mm-Wave non-stacked patch antenna array is designed on a dielectric substrate to serve the performance baseline. In addition to the mentioned three materials, various material thicknesses and various gaps between the materials and the patch antenna array are also simulated to enable quick understanding of the dielectric material influences on the mm-Wave antenna performance. Based on the simulated results, due to the different levels of dielectric constants, the ZrO
₂
ceramic influences the antenna performance most and the plastic influences the antenna performance least. Additionally, when the dielectric material thicknesses are close or equal to integer multiples of 0.5 guided wavelength (λg), the mm-Wave antenna performance in the material-loading scenarios is closer to that in the free space (FS); in other words, the radome influences caused by the materials can be relieved and the gap effects between materials and the antenna array can also be mitigated so that better antenna performance can be attained. The analysis results can also be extended to the radome designs and applications for Terahertz (THz) antenna arrays.