A high gain patch antenna using negative permeability metamaterial structures

In this paper, a high gain patch antenna realized by using negative permeability electromagnetic metamaterials is presented to operate at 5–5.5 GHz. The proposed metamaterial cell is investigated and analyzed by numerical methods. We found that the proposed metamaterial structure provides a negative permeability from 5 GHz to 5.5 GHz, which overlaps with the operating frequency band of the reference microstrip antenna. By periodically loading a number of the proposed metamaterial cells on the substrate around the patch antenna, the gain of the antenna at operating frequency is enhanced by about 2.5 dBi, while there is no effect on the operating bandwidth of the reference antenna.