Liquid-metal-based phase shifter with reconfigurable EBG filling factor

A phase shifter based on reconfigurable filling factors (FF) in a 1D electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structure is presented. The device is capable of different gradations in phase shift, using liquid metal to fill or evacuate holes in the defected ground plane of a microstrip line. The design consists of three cascaded EBG lattices, each consisting of 4 circles with a FF of 0.17, 0.25, and 0.37 respectively. When actuated, a per-element phase shift of 1.8, 5.7, and 9.4 degrees at 5.6 GHz is introduced. A total of 67.2 degrees of phase shift can be achieved with an average insertion loss of 1.1 dB.