Wideband 24–46 GHz Phased Array Antenna Enabled by a Compact Footprint Magnetoelectric Dipole with Frequency-selective Stepped Patches

A novel dual-polarized (DP) magnetoelectric (ME) dipole element, integrated with frequency-selective stepped patches, is introduced. These patches provide an additional lower-band electric dipole resonant mode to the conventional DP ME dipole element and dynamically adjust the element’s radiation aperture with frequency, similar to a frequency-independent antenna. This innovation achieves a wide impedance bandwidth (24–46 GHz, 62.8%) and stable radiation patterns across the entire band within a compact element footprint (0.23λ₀×0.23λ₀), making the element suitable for wideband phased array antenna (PAA) applications. A heterogeneous beam element (HBE) with an inclined beam is designed by asymmetrically loading a metasurface onto the proposed DP ME dipole. A novel 4×4 DP PAA is developed based on the DP ME dipole element and the HBE, where the HBE compensates for aperture loss at large scanning angles within the higher frequency band, ensuring scanning performance across the entire band. The proposed PAA achieves state-of-the-art operational bandwidth (24-46 GHz, 62.8%) and scanning capability (≥±40° across the entire band).