Evaluation of Reconfigurable Reflectarray Antenna Element at 19 GHz Based on Highly Anisotropic Liquid Crystal Material

The design and evaluation of a reconfigurable reflectarray antenna element with single resonant structure operating at around 19 GHz is presented. The reconfigurability is obtained by using a novel liquid crystal material with high anisotropy and low dielectric loss. The result shows a phase shift of305 degrees at 19 GHz when tuning the LC materials, and the phase shift range is sufficiently high and enough for most practical designs of reflectarray antennas. The unit cell element with multi resonant structure is expected to have a better phase property, and could provide a beam scanning capability over a wide angular range for reconfigurable reflectarray antennas.