Gain Enhancing Compact GRIN Lens

GRadient INdex (GRIN) lenses are spatially inhomogeneous dielectric lenses that can significantly improve the gain of an antenna. However, traditional lens designs are too bulky to be used on aircraft or in space applications especially for frequencies at or below L-band. To overcome these size limitations, an additively manufactured ceramic compact GRIN lens with a diameter of 1.3 wavelengths at the smallest frequency of interest was fabricated and demonstrates over 4 dB gain improvement compared to the no lens case. This significant improvement is possible because of the coherent interaction of the radiation through the inside and, importantly, around the outside of the GRIN lens.