Back radiation suppression through a semi-transparent round ground plane for a mm-Wave monopole antenna

Omnidirectional radiation pattern with minimum backward radiation is highly desirable for millimeter-wave telecommunication antennas. In this work, we propose a round, semitransparent ground plane of radius 0.8λ with uniform impedance distribution that can reduce the back radiation of a monopole antenna by 8.8 dB as compared with a similar sized metallic ground plane. The value of uniform impedance is obtained through analytical optimization by using asymptotic expressions in the Kirchhoff approximation of the radiation pattern of a toroidal wave scattered by a round semitransparent ground plane. The semitransparent ground plane has been realized using a low-cost carbon paste on a Kapton film. Experimental results match closely with those of simulations and validate the overall concept.