Phase change material based reconfigurable transmitarray: a feasibility study

Samara Gharbieh (1) , Antonio Clemente (1) , Jorick Milbrandt (1) , Bruno Reig (1)

1 CEA-LETI - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives - Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information

In this paper, we present the design of a reconfigurable transmitarray operating in the D-band (110-170 GHz). The transmitarray unit cell has a relatively simple structure with three metal layers and two quartz dielectric substrates. The active transmitting patch of the unit cell ensures a 1-bit phase shift resolution by alternating the states of two innovative switches. Here, we overcome the small dimensions challenge in the D-band by introducing compact switches that are compatible with the dimensions of the proposed unit cell. The switches are made of phase change materials (PCM) that alternate between the amorphous and the crystalline states under the effect of heat. We present a full-wave simulation of the unit cell, which shows an insertion loss that is below 1.5 dB over a relative frequency band of 27%. Furthermore, we synthesize a 16x16 elements transmitarray using an in-house MATLAB tool and compare its theoretical results to a full-wave HFSS simulation. The outcome shows that by integrating the proposed switches into the unit cell, the designed transmitarray can achieve promising reconfiguration results in the D-band.

Keywords: transmitarray; electronically beamforming; beam scanning; phase change materials

Domains: Physics [physics]

Samara Gharbieh, Antonio Clemente, Jorick Milbrandt, Bruno Reig. Phase change material based reconfigurable transmitarray: a feasibility study. EuCAP 2022 - The 16th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation, Mar 2022, Madrid, Spain. ⟨cea-03637061⟩