A Wideband Microstrip 1 x 2 Array Antenna Fed by Coupler for Beam Steering Terahertz (THz) Band Applications

Terahertz band gap is the range of frequency lying between the microwave band and the optical band, its range spectrum starts from 0.1 THz to 10 THz. This band provides unallocated wide bandwidth as well as very high-speed communication in the futuristic applications. This article presents a broadband microstrip 1  2 array antenna powered by hybrid coupler in terahertz band (around 2.45 THz). To reach this Broadband antenna, at first, a wideband 3 dB hybrid coupler is designed and optimized. After that, two basic elements of square shaped with slots are fed by the two output ports of the coupler. The results obtained reports that the suggested antenna offers – 10 dB wide bandwidth equals to 846 GHz (from 1.91 to 2.77 THz) with good impedance matching, maximum directivity equals to 8.86 dBi at the operating frequency 2.45 THz. Additionally, it offers the capability of beam steering which can be obtained by switching of the input ports of the coupler. Thus, the antenna can produce two beams at  30  . The structure and simulation results of the proposed antenna have been done on Rogers RT/duroid 5880 substrate. The total size of the proposed microstrip array antenna is 110  112  1.56  m 3 . Due to its capability of beam steering and broadband characteristic, the proposed antenna is a potential candidate for Terahertz band applications such as materials characterization in the THz band, medical imaging and future high-speed wireless communication.