Radiation performance and profile comparison of all-dielectric phase-corrected electromagnetic bandgap resonator antennas and hyperbolic lens antennas

Recent research on the phase correction of classical electromagnetic bandgap resonator antennas (ERAs) has proved that their radiation performance can be significantly improved using phase-correcting structures (PCSs). Since lens antennas have some similarities, this work compares their far-field radiation performance and total height with phase-corrected ERAs. For this purpose, a previously reported all-dielectric phase-corrected ERA [1] is compared with eight lens antennas with different focal lengths. Each lens antenna consists of a hyperbolic lens and a patch feed antenna. For fair comparison, each lens has the same physical aperture area and is made out of the same material as those of the PCS. Further, both lens antennas and ERAs are fed by the same microstrip patch antenna. It was found that that the phase-corrected ERA has a higher directivity and better side-lobe levels, and is shorter, than all lens antennas. The lens antenna with the closest directivity to the phase-corrected ERA is 93% taller than the phase-corrected ERA. Even the shortest lens antenna is slightly taller than the phase-corrected ERA and its directivity is 4.16 dB less than that of the phase-corrected ERA.