258
8, 2009
A Broadband Dual-Mode Monopole Antenna Using
NRI-TL Metamaterial Loading
Marco A. Antoniades, Member, IEEE, and George V. Eleftheriades, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—A printed monopole antenna is proposed which uses
negative-refractive-index transmission-line (NRI-TL) metamate-
rial loading in order to achieve a broadband dual-mode operation.
The metamaterial-loaded monopole supports a predominately
even-mode current at 5.5 GHz, which allows the antenna to
be modeled as a short folded monopole. Around 3.55 GHz, the
metamaterial-loaded monopole acts as a balun for the ground
plane currents, therefore rendering the entire top edge of the
ground plane as the main radiating element. This in turn radiates
a dipolar mode that is orthogonal to the folded-monopole mode at
5.5 GHz. By virtue of the orthogonality between the two radiating
modes, the metamaterial antenna exhibits a return-loss character-
istic with a dual resonance, and therefore a very wide measured
impedance bandwidth of 4.06 GHz. The total size of the antenna
is only 22 30 mm, and the measured efficiency is on the order
of 90% at both 3.55 and 5.5 GHz.
Index Terms—Folded monopole antenna, metamaterials, nega-
tive refractive index.
I. INTRODUCTION
HE recent inception of negative-refractive-index trans-
T mission-line (NRI-TL) metamaterials (MTM) [1], has
enabled the development of numerous new antenna designs
that take advantage of the unique characteristics that metama-
terials have to offer. Notable among these are a compact and
multi-band patch antenna [2], a low-profile 0 ring antenna
with vertical polarization [3], a meandered dipole with a po-
larization that is orthogonal to its length [4], a dual-band ring
antenna with a linear or circular polarization [5] and an infinite
wavelength antenna with monopolar radiation patterns [6].
In this work, a printed monopole antenna that employs
NRI-TL metamaterial loading is presented, that forms a natural
extension of the work carried out by the same authors in [3],
[7], [8] and [9] for various electrically small MTM antennas.
The different versions of the aforementioned MTM antennas
consisted of microstrip MTM unit cells arranged in a ring
configuration over a truncated horizontal ground plane. Each
of the MTM unit cells was designed to incur a 0 phase shift
at the design frequency, thus ensuring that the currents on each
of the vertical vias within the unit cells were in phase. This
technique allows each of the MTM antennas to be modeled as
Manuscript received December 14, 2008; revised January 21, 2009. First pub-
lished February 02, 2009; current version published May 06, 2009. This work
was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of
Canada and Intel Corporation.
M. A. Antoniades and G. V. Eleftheriades are with the Edward S. Rogers Sr.
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto,
Toronto, ON M5S 3G4, Canada (e-mail: mantonia@waves.utoronto.ca;
gelefth@waves.utoronto.ca).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2009.2014402
1536-1225/$25.00 © 2009 IEEE
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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.
Fig. 1. NRI-TL metamaterial monopole antenna. All dimensions are in mil-
limeters: L =6
,W = 5 = 15
,L ,W ,h = 30 = 1 = 4
,L ,W =5 ,
L = 3 45
: ,W =01
: ,h = 1 59 : ,S : ,W =02 = 1 55
: , via diam-
eter= 05 :.
a short multi-arm folded monopole that can be easily matched
to 50 without the use of an external matching network or
balun, and which radiates a vertical linear electric field [9].
The antenna proposed herein and shown in Fig. 1 also employs
MTM loading in order to implement the folded monopole tech-
nique within the widely popular printed monopole structure. A
single MTM unit cell is integrated directly onto the monopole
itself, which transforms the antenna into a folded monopole
around the frequency of 5.5 GHz, while at 3.55 GHz the MTM
loading enables the ground plane of the antenna to radiate an
orthogonal polarization. Thus, the MTM-loaded monopole
antenna achieves a very wideband dual-resonance response
in a compact and low-profile design that does not require the
use of any chip lumped-element components. Moreover, the
antenna exhibits orthogonal polarizations in the 3.3–3.8 GHz
WiMax and 5.15–5.85 GHz WiFi bands of interest, making it
well suited for use in low-cost multiple-input–multiple-output
(MIMO) systems for wireless local area networks (WLAN).
II. ANTENNA DESIGN
The antennas considered in this work were designed on an
FR4 substrate with parameters mm,
and . As a reference comparison, an unloaded
CPW-fed printed monopole antenna with a total length of
mm was first designed and simulated in Ansoft HFSS.
This antenna had the same dimensions as the one shown in Fig. 1
but without the MTM loading on the bottom side of the sub-
strate. The simulated return-loss characteristics for the unloaded
monopole are shown in Fig. 2. It exhibits a matched resonance
around 6.3 GHz with a return-loss bandwidth below dB of
2.36 GHz, from 5.31 to 7.67 GHz.
Since the performance of the unloaded monopole was above
the range of interest for existing WLAN applications, a different
 ANTONIADES AND ELEFTHERIADES: BROADBAND DUAL-MODE MONOPOLE ANTENNA
Fig. 2. Simulated return-loss characteristics of the unloaded and MTM-loaded
printed monopole antennas from Ansoft HFSS.
Fig. 3. NRI-TL metamaterial  unit cell.
approach using metamaterial loading was pursued in order to
meet the WLAN specifications. Capitalizing on the reduced
size that a MTM folded monopole has to offer [9], the printed
monopole was loaded on the bottom side of the substrate in
a left-handed fashion as shown in Fig. 1. This type of loading
was inspired by the NRI-TL metamaterial unit cell shown in
Fig. 3, and enables the MTM-loaded monopole to maintain its
small form-factor while decreasing its operating frequency and
extending its bandwidth. Other monopole loading techniques
have also been reported in the literature, for example in [10] a
printed monopole was loaded with an H-shaped conductor to
create a band notch in the response of a UWB antenna.
In the MTM-loaded monopole of Fig. 1 the loading was car-
ried out in an asymmetric fashion, where the series capacitance
was formed between the monopole on the top of the substrate
and the rectangular patch on the bottom of the substrate, the
shunt inductance was formed at the base of the monopole,
while the shunt inductance was formed by the thin inductive
strip and via that join the bottom rectangular patch to the CPW
ground plane. The length of the monopole itself and the bottom
patch and thin inductive strip form the TL sections in Fig. 3,
with approximate parameters of and
at 5.5 GHz. The capacitance was adjusted by changing the
length of the bottom patch and the inductance was ad-
justed by changing the width of the thin inductive strip in
order to obtain in-phase currents along the top monopole section
and along the thin bottom strip at 5.5 GHz, thus forming a com-
pact folded monopole. The final dimensions of the optimized
MTM monopole antenna are outlined in Fig. 1. Using these di-
mensions, the extracted values for the loading elements were in
the range of 0.2 nH for , 3 nH for , and 0.5 pF for ,
which when inserted into [9, eq. (1)] result in a phase shift close
to 0 .
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259
Fig. 4. Surface current distributions on the conductors of the MTM-loaded
monopole antenna. (a) 5.5 GHz. (b) 3.55 GHz.
The simulated return-loss characteristics for the unloaded and
the MTM-loaded monopole antennas are both shown in Fig. 2.
It can be observed that while the unloaded monopole exhibits a
single resonance around 6.3 GHz, the MTM-loaded monopole
exhibits a broadband dual-resonance, comprising the desired
resonance around 5.5 GHz together with an additional reso-
nance around 3.55 GHz. The MTM antenna has a simulated
return-loss bandwidth below dB of 3.84 GHz, from 3.15
to 6.99 GHz. Thus, it can be observed that the addition of the
MTM loading to the short monopole not only reduces the oper-
ating frequency from 6.3 to 5.5 GHz, but also introduces another
resonance around 3.55 GHz, which is located at the center of the
3.3–3.8 GHz WiMax band. The resonance around 3.55 GHz can
be tuned by changing the width of the ground plane , while
the length of the ground plane can be used to change the
input impedance level.
A. Principle of Operation
The dual-mode operation of the antenna can be explained by
considering the current distribution on the MTM-loaded antenna
at each of the resonant frequencies, as shown in Fig. 4. These
figures were sketched from the surface current distributions ob-
served in Ansoft HFSS. At 5.5 GHz, the MTM loading was
adjusted such that the current along the monopole and along
the bottom thin inductive strip were in phase. Thus, at this fre-
quency the MTM loading was used to create a two-arm folded
monopole, similar to the four-arm folded monopole of [9]. As
was outlined in [9], by adjusting the value of the loading in-
ductance it is possible to effectively eliminate the odd-mode
current on the monopole, enabling the even-mode current along
the -direction to radiate, as shown in Fig. 4(a). Additionally, at
5.5 GHz, the currents along the top edges of the two ground
planes are out of phase and the balanced CPW mode is pre-
served, therefore these currents do not contribute to any radi-
ation.
At 3.55 GHz, the antenna no longer acts as a folded monopole
along the -axis, but rather as a dipole oriented along the -axis.
This is a result of the in-phase currents along the top edges of
both the ground plane sections as shown in Fig. 4(b), which
render the ground plane as the main radiating element at this fre-
quency. This current distribution can be explained with the aid
of the circuit diagram of Fig. 3. At low frequencies the host TL
sections can be considered negligible. Assuming that the feed
is placed at the base of the shunt inductor , the entire cir-
cuit is simply transformed into a series resonator formed be-
tween the loading capacitance and the loading inductance
 260
Fig. 5. Measured and simulated return-loss characteristics of the unloaded
monopole antenna, shown in the inset photograph.
. Around 3.55 GHz the series resonator, which rep-
resents the MTM-loaded monopole, forms a short circuit and
therefore acts as a balun for the currents on the ground plane.
The phase of the current flowing on the right ground plane is
therefore reversed, and is aligned with the current on the left
ground plane. This in turn enables the entire top edge of the
ground plane to radiate in a dipolar fashion. As a consequence,
the MTM-loaded monopole cannot be integrated onto a larger
ground plane and must be used as a stand-alone unit in order to
preserve the radiating mode at 3.55 GHz. As will be shown in
the next section, the dual-radiating nature of the antenna at 3.55
and 5.5 GHz will also be verified by the orthogonal polariza-
tions radiated at each of the aforementioned frequencies.
III. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Both the unloaded and the MTM-loaded monopole antennas
were fabricated and tested, and their photographs and return-
loss characteristics are shown in Figs. 5 and 6. In both cases
the simulated and measured responses match quite well, with
the unloaded monopole exhibiting a measured dB band-
width of 2.48 GHz, from 5.35 to 7.83 GHz, while the MTM-
loaded monopole exhibits an increased measured bandwidth of
4.06 GHz, from 3.14 to 7.20 GHz.
The measured and simulated radiation patterns for the
MTM-loaded monopole antenna for the three principal planes
at 5.5 GHz are shown in Fig. 7. At 5.5 GHz, the antenna exhibits
radiation patterns with a horizontal -directed linear electric
field polarization, consistent with -directed currents along
the monopole and the bottom thin inductive strip, as shown in
Fig. 4(a). Thus, the radiation patterns verify that at 5.5 GHz
the metamaterial loading of the monopole antenna enables it to
operate as a short folded monopole.
The radiation patterns in the - and the -planes, which
correspond to the two E-planes of the folded monopole, re-
veal that the patterns are not completely symmetric. This is an
expected result, since the ground plane acts to partially block
radiation in the direction. As such, the observed gain of
the antenna is higher in the half-space region, i.e., in the
bottom-half of Fig. 7(a) and in the left-half of Fig. 7(b). In
the -plane, which corresponds to the H-plane of the folded
monopole, the radiation pattern is as expected omnidirectional.
The simulated efficiency from HFSS at 5.5 GHz was 91.0%,
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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 8, 2009
Fig. 6. Measured and simulated return-loss characteristics of the MTM-loaded
monopole antenna, shown in the inset photographs.
compared to measured efficiencies of 89.2% using the gain com-
parison method and 92.6% using the Wheeler cap method [11],
verifying that they are in good agreement.
Fig. 8 shows the measured and simulated radiation patterns
for the MTM-loaded monopole for the three principal planes
at 3.55 GHz. Interestingly, at this frequency the antenna ex-
hibits radiation patterns with a horizontal -directed linear elec-
tric field polarization, consistent with a -directed current along
the ground plane of the structure, as shown in Fig. 2. This indi-
cates that around 3.55 GHz, the ground plane acts as the main
radiating element for the antenna, providing an orthogonal po-
larization to the one observed at 5.5 GHz.
The radiation patterns in the - and the -planes, which
correspond to the two E-planes of the ground-plane radiating
mode at 3.55 GHz, indicate that the structure radiates in a
dipolar fashion at this frequency. In fact, at 3.55 GHz the width
of the ground plane, or equivalently the length of the radiating
edge, is approximately equal to . Since it is the ground
plane itself that is radiating, there is no radiation blockage
observed as in the case of the E-plane patterns at 5.5 GHz.
There is, however, a partial filling of the null around in
the -plane, that can be attributed to constructive interference
from the two -directed currents on the monopole and the
bottom thin inductive strip. This additional current also mani-
fests itself in the cross-polarization data of the -plane in the
direction. In the -plane, which corresponds to the
H-plane of the radiating ground plane, the radiation pattern is as
expected omnidirectional. The simulated efficiency from HFSS
at 3.55 GHz was 88.7% compared to measured efficiencies of
87.7% using the gain comparison method and 91.6% using the
Wheeler cap method, verifying that at this frequency they are
also in good agreement.
As a final note, it should be mentioned that throughout each
of the 3.3–3.8 GHz WiMax and 5.15–5.85 GHz WiFi bands the
radiation patterns exhibit similar characteristics to the ones pre-
sented in Figs. 8 and 7, respectively.
IV. CONCLUSION
A compact and broadband antenna has been presented,
which employs metamaterial loading on a conventional printed
monopole design in order to create a dual-mode antenna. It
was demonstrated that the addition of the metamaterial loading
 ANTONIADES AND ELEFTHERIADES: BROADBAND DUAL-MODE MONOPOLE ANTENNA 261

Fig. 7. Measured and simulated radiation patterns for the MTM-loaded monopole antenna at 5.5 GHz. Solid blue line: measured copolarization, dashed black
line: simulated copolarization, solid red line: measured cross-polarization, and dash-dot black line: simulated cross-polarization.

Fig. 8. Measured and simulated radiation patterns for the MTM-loaded monopole antenna at 3.55 GHz. Solid blue line: measured copolarization, dashed black
line: simulated copolarization, solid red line: measured cross-polarization, and dash-dot black line: simulated cross-polarization.

allows the antenna to be modeled as a short folded monopole
at 5.5 GHz, while at 3.55 GHz the loading enables the entire
top edge of the ground plane to radiate. Thus, the metama-
terial-loaded antenna achieves orthogonal pattern diversity
in both the 3.3–3.8 GHz WiMax and 5.15–5.85 GHz WiFi
bands. Additionally, the antenna exhibits a measured dB
return-loss bandwidth of 4.06 GHz, while maintaining a very
high efficiency in the order of 90% in both the bands of interest.
It is therefore well suited for MIMO diversity systems for
emerging wireless LAN applications.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like thank D. Choudhury from Intel Cor-
poration for many useful discussions.
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