A Hexagonally Shaped Unit Cell for Holographic-Based Leaky Wave Antennas

In this paper, a hexagonally shaped unit cell that allows for the realization of the modulated surface impedance of a holographic-based leaky wave antenna is presented. For a valid eigenmode solution a rectangular cut-out of the hexagonally unit cell arrangement and an analytical calculation of the hexagonally unit cell positioning is performed. The eigenvector-supported tensor synthesis is used to compute the impedance hologram by utilizing hexagonally shaped unit cells. The hexagonally shape leads to an increased number of unit cells and thus to an increased radiated power. A holographic-based leaky wave antenna is fabricated on a fused silica wafer for an operation frequency of 160 GHz. The far field measurements show a maximum gain of 34.1dBi corresponding in an aperture efficiency of 40% and a side-lobe level below −27dB is achieved.