Design and fabrication of a 3D-EBG superstrate for patch antennas

Abstract

A layer-by-layer Electromagnetic Band-Gap (EBG) structure has been fabricated by means of alumina rods with square cross-section. The rods have been placed to form a woodpile structure; a square support with thin iron pins has been employed to obtain a precise rods alignment. The design parameters have been chosen to make the structure resonate at 11 GHz, when two identical woodpile layers are employed to form an EBG cavity. At the resonance, a unitary transmission occurs for an incident field, which can be employed in many microwave applications. In particular, a patch antenna has been fabricated to be used with the woodpile cavity, with properties of high directivity.