Influence of design liquid crystal-based devices on the agility capability

This article deals with liquid-crystal-based tunable components: phase-shifters and patch-antennas. It reports on investigations about the influence of design on their characteristics. For phase-shifters based on an inverted microstrip line, the line design is paramount for improvement of phase-shift and figure-of-merit. Moreover, the use of liquid crystal in the design of patch antennas allows adjustment of the resonance frequency, and slot insertion results in size reduction with no decrease of performances. Both cases highlight the interest of liquid crystal in millimeter frequency devices.