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Gain and Bandwidth Enhancement of a Microstrip Antenna Using Partial Substrate Removal in Multiple-layer Dielectric Substrate
Neeraj Rao and Dinesh Kumar V. PDPM Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design & Manufacturing Jabalpur, India

Abstract In this paper, a novel antenna design for simultaneous improvement of patch antenna gain and bandwidth has been proposed using partial substrate removal in a multiple-layer dielectric by suppression of surface wave losses beneath the substrate surface by embedding a low-dielectric (air) void. In this way, improvement in gain is achieved by fractional removal of substrate. Bandwidth of the patch antenna is increased by using multiple layer dielectric substrates. It is known that bandwidth of microstrip antenna is small and varies directly with the size of the patch, Increasing size of patch to improve bandwidth makes it large and bulky. Thus to overcome the bandwidth limitation without increasing size unacceptably, a patch on multiple-layer scheme has been designed to reduce the eective dielectric constant. This ensures that bandwidth increases greatly while size is nearly unaected. Performance parameters like bandwidth and reection loss have been evaluated and compared with that obtained from single layer dielectric substrates. Results suggest considerable improvement in bandwidth using the proposed patch antenna design on multi-layered dielectric substrate. The designed patch has a size of 12 8 mm2 and gives a bandwidth and gain of 314 MHz and gain 4.035 dB at 6.479 GHz. 1. INTRODUCTION

A microstrip patch antenna is widely used in compact and portable communication devices due to its small size, thin prole congurations, conformity and low cost. In spite of these remarkable advantages, the patch suers some serious drawbacks like low bandwidth (due to small size). Bandwidth can be increased but at the cost of size of the patch, making it large and bulky. To overcome this problem, a multiple-layer dielectric substrate has been used to improve bandwidth, in this paper [1]. There are dierent types of losses in antenna, one of which is surface wave loss due to of the permittivity of the material and thickness of the substrate [25]. Due to excitation of surface waves, patch antenna also suers from reduced gain and eciency as well as unacceptably high levels of cross-polarization and mutual coupling within an array environment at high frequencies. In this paper, parts of the substrate surrounding the patch have been strategically removed to suppress surface wave losses, and thereby increase gain [610]. It is known that for a particular resonant frequency, the bandwidth increases with increase in size of patch antenna for a high dielectric [11]. The patch antenna of low dielectric has a moderate bandwidth but large size [12]. Bandwidth decreases with increase in the dielectric value of the substrate. The two substrates have been combined so as to include the quality of both high and low dielectric, i.e., high bandwidth and low patch size respectively [1]. A microstrip patch antenna implemented on silicon (r = 11.9) has moderate bandwidth with a small sized patch and that implemented on glass (r = 4.6) has a high bandwidth. In this paper, a multiple-layer substrate is made by sandwiching one layer of glass (r = 4.6) in between two layers of silicon (r = 11.9) so as to reduce the antenna size as much as possible. Here, silicon (r = 11.9) has been used directly below the patch so as to maximize the size reduction. As a result, the size is increased slightly, but the bandwidth is increased greatly. The method to improve the gain is to reduce the loss of the microstrip antenna. The gain of the antenna can be increased by reducing the loss due to surface wave propagation [1317]. One method to do so is by replacing the substrate of patch with low dielectric values or with air (r = 1). Periodic structures of electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) can be used to block the surface waves from propagating in a certain band of frequency. A common method to generate EBG structures is to drill holes in substrate to synthesize a lower dielectric constant substrate [18]. However, in this paper, a rather simpler version of EBG structure approach has been used by partially removing the substrate surrounding the patch instead of drilling periodic holes. Removing the substrate partially stops the propagation of surface wave in the substrate, which reduces the power coupled in backward direction and enhances the forward coupled power [6]. As a result the gain increases.
2. SIGNIFICANCE OF A MULTIPLE-LAYER SUBSTRATE

The wavelength of an EM wave at 5 GHz is about 6 cm in air [1]. The size of the antenna at 5 GHz is typically in the order of centimeters, which take a lot of area in wireless devices. To address

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the issue of narrow bandwidth, many methods can be found in literature, typical methods being E-patch and U slot, aperture coupling [19]. These approaches enable broadband characteristics using air or low dielectric constant substrates, but at the cost of large volume and need of a large ground plane. For small-size compact antenna, the requirement is not only the smaller size but also a smaller ground plane. A compact rectangular patch microstrip antenna with small volume has been proposed in [20]. It has broadband characteristics due to multiple layer substrates. The dielectric constant of the substrate is closely related to the size and the bandwidth of the microstrip antenna. A trade-o relationship exists between antenna size and bandwidth [21]. But if we use multiple-layer substrates of dierent materials, the eect of trade-o relationship can be reduced. The use of high and low dielectric constant materials for multiple layer substrates puts eective dielectric constant to a value at the centre of both high and low dielectric constant materials [20]. HRS (High Resistivity Silicon) was chosen as a substrate. An antenna fabricated on HRS substrate had small patch size but it also had narrow bandwidth. However, a glass substrate in the middle of silicon substrates lowered the eective dielectric constant. By using a Si/Glass/Si multi layer substrate, the bandwidth is increased greatly while the size is increased slightly. In this paper we have designed the antenna which has a broad bandwidth and a higher gain [22].
3. PROPOSED ANTENNA DESIGN

It is known that for a particular resonant frequency, the bandwidth increases with increase in size of patch antenna for a high dielectric [6]. The patch antenna of low dielectric has a moderate bandwidth but large size. Bandwidth decreases with increase in the dielectric value of the substrate [6]. The two substrates have been combined so as to include the quality of both high and low dielectric, i.e., high bandwidth and low patch size respectively. Figure 1 shows the proposed antenna design for a circular patch antenna on multiple-layer dielectric. A microstrip patch antenna implemented on silicon (r = 11.9) has moderate bandwidth with a small sized patch and that implemented on glass (r = 4.6) has a high bandwidth. In this paper, a multiple-layer substrate is made by sandwiching one layer of glass (r = 4.6) in between two layers of silicon (r = 11.9) so as to reduce the antenna size as much as possible. Here, silicon (r = 11.9) has been strategically used directly below the patch so as to maximize the size reduction. As a result, the size is increased slightly, but the bandwidth is increased greatly. The proposed fractional substrate removal design consists of replacing certain fractions of the patch substrate by air in certain congurations. It has been tested for fractional substrate removal in various congurations like-along radiating and non-radiating edges, making trenches of dierent widths all-around the patch, below the patch and on all its sides. Figure 1 shows the design using removal of a fraction of substrate from the substrate surrounding the patch. The performance metrics gain (dB), half power Beam Width (E plane) and half power Beam Width (H plane) in degrees has been computed and analyzed for the proposed structure.

(b)

(a)

(c)

Figure 1: Proposed antenna design Patch on multiple-layer dielectric. (a) Isometric view. (b) Top view. (c) Side view.

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Suzhou, China, Sept. 1216, 2011 4. SIMULATION RESULTS

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The advantages of the proposed multi-layer substrate for a rectangular patch were veried using the Computer Simulation Technology Studio SuiteTM 2011 simulation tool. Simulation results and performance parameter bandwidth has been calculated using the proposed multilayer dielectric and were compared with that obtained from single-layer silicon and single-layer glass substrate. Table 1 shows the dimensions and the simulation results of the tested microstrip antenna designs. The parametric description of the multiple-layer substrate is as follows: Glass substrate (r = 4.6) of 1 mm is sandwiched between two silicon layers (r = 11.9) of thickness 0.5 mm each. The rectangular patch has size 12 8 mm2 and has been fed using microstrip feed. All of the designed microstrip antenna have 15 15 mm2 ground plane.
5. OBSERVATIONS

Performance metric bandwidth has been analyzed and observations regarding the radiation pattern and reection loss obtained using the proposed patch antennas have been discussed in this section.
5.1. Bandwidth and Patch Size

Figure 2 shows reection loss (in dB) for dierent dielectric substrates. Best bandwidth-size trade-o was observed using the proposed multiple-layer dielectric substrate (Si/Glass/Si) giving a bandwidth of 314 MHz (reection loss: 9.5014 dB) at patch size 8 12 mm2 .
Table 1: Comparison of simulation results on rectangular patch antenna using dierent types of substrates.
Dielectric Silicon (single layer) Glass (single layer) Silicon/ Glass/Silicon (Multiple-layer) Dielectric constant 11.9 4.6 Thickness (mm) 2 2 Bandwidth (MHz) 72.7 86.4 Size of rectangular patch 86 12 13 Gain Directivity

2.490 2.326

4.728 4.528

11.9/4.6/11/9

0.5/1/0.5

314

8 12

4.035

6.646

Figure 2: Reection loss (in dB) for Multiple layer Dielectric with partial substrate removal. Reection loss for the proposed antenna reaches 9.5014 dB, it has the highest 3 dB bandwidth of 314 MHz.

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(a)

(b)

Figure 3: Radiation pattern for patch antenna on multiple-layer dielectric with partial substrate removal in (a) E plane, = 90. (b) H -plane, = 0. The main lobe magnitude (gain) is found to be 4.035 dB.

The smallest patch on single-layer silicon substrate was found to be 8 6 mm2 and very low reection loss of 19.246 dB but the bandwidth was only 72.7 MHz. The rectangular patch on single-layer glass substrate was found to give a bandwidth of 86.4 MHz (reection loss: 7.8 dB) but at a size of 12 13 mm2 . When compared with bandwidth of single-layer substrate the bandwidth was found to increase remarkably using the proposed multiple-layer substrate. Bandwidth using multiple-layer dielectric is greater than that obtained using single-layer Si substrate by while the size (patch area) was increased. On comparison with bandwidth of single-layer glass substrate, multiple-layer dielectric substrate gives 260% increase in bandwidth while the size is reduced by 38%.
5.2. Radiation Pattern

Figure 3 shows the simulation results of the radiation patterns for the proposed patch on multiple-layer substrate along E and H -planes. The microstrip antennas on glass and Si/glass/Si substrate were found to have similar radiation patterns. The gain of the proposed multiple-layer with partial substrate removal patch was found to be 4.035 dB. This is acceptable value gain for a microstrip antenna. Also back lobe of the radiation pattern is quite large due to small ground planes. These can be improved by increasing the area of the ground plane.
6. CONCLUSION

The proposed antenna design using multiple-layer dielectric with partial substrate removal has been found to give a bandwidth of 314 MHz with a gain of 4.035 dB at an operating frequency of 6.646 GHz. This is a noteworthy improvement in bandwidth over that obtained using microstrip antenna over single-layer silicon or single-layer glass substrate. These broadband characteristics can be attributed to the multiple-layer dielectric substrate that lowers the eective dielectric value while reducing the size as much as possible. The proposed antenna has a gain of 4.035 dB. This approach can be extended further to improve gain and bandwidth simultaneously by incorporating various electromagnetic band-gap structures in a multiple-layer conguration.
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