Dynamic beam steering properties of an electrically tuned liquid crystal based CRLH leaky wave antenna

Abstract

A continuously electrically tunable composite right/left-handed leaky-wave antenna based on liquid crystal is presented. Beam steering from -6° to 9° with respect to the broadside at a fixed operation frequency of 26.7 GHz is achieved by applying a tuning voltage between 0 V and 120 V. Far field measurements and the response times of the liquid crystal for this specific application are analyzed in detail.