Novel photonically-controlled reflectarray antenna

A novel method for generating a reconfigurable reflectarray based on the creation of photoinduced plasma inside the semiconductor substrate of a reflectarray is presented in this paper. A reflectarray antenna prototype is fabricated and measured to demonstrate the validity of the design methodology. Measurements were carried out to characterize the bandwidth and the gain of the antenna in both the OFF and ON states of an optical flash lamp that was used to induce photoconductivity inside the silicon substrate.