Hybrid metal-plasma Yagi-Uda antenna for microwave applications

In this work, a feasibility study of a hybrid metal-plasma Yagi antenna operating at 1.55GHz is presented. In particular, the directors of the antenna are constituted of microplasma discharges that allow to realize very thin and short plasma tubes, thus overcoming some issues related to the use in the GHz regime of classic thick plasma discharges. We will show that this design choice leads to good results in terms of gain with respect to the classic metal Yagi antenna, thus paving the way to a new class of hybrid reconfigurable antennas operating at high frequencies.