Reflectivity of Reflectarrays Based on Dielectric Substrates

Problem statement: Reflectarrays provide a low cost and low profile s olution for antennas required for high gain applications but their use i s restricted in some applications due to the narrow bandwidth and high loss performance. These performance limitations can be attributed to different sources of reflectivity of the reflectarrays. This work provides a thorough investigation on the reflectivity performance of reflectarrays designed at 10 GHz using different dielectric substrates. Approach: The detailed analytical study of the characteristi cs and losses of the reflectarrays was presented and a number of dielectric substrates are used to design and analyze the reflectivity of the reflectarrays based on the analytical investigation which is validated by Finite Integral Method (FIM) . Results: The results showed that the dielectric material wi th lowest dielectric permittivity and loss tangent values (Teflon) demonstrates an optimum reflectivity performance when employed for the reflectarray design. Conclusion: It was concluded from this research that material properties significantly affect the reflectivity of the reflec tarrays and hence the bandwidth and loss performance can be pronounced improved by using a low dielectric substrate.