Near-field plane-wave-like beam emitting antenna fabricated by anisotropic metamaterial

Abstract

In this work, the authors showed that the directivity and efficiency of an electromagnetic (EM) emission could be greatly improved by embedding the source in an anisotropic matrix with one component of the physical parameters near zero. This unique property led us to design a slab-shaped rectangular antenna that could emit a monopolarized planar wave beam into the near field. This greatly reduced the spatial and anechoic requirements needed for polarization-relevant EM characterizations. The practical feasibility of building such a device was numerically discussed by engineering a real anisotropic embedding matrix made of metamaterial.