Investigation of a patch antenna based on I-shaped left-handed material

Left-handed Material (LHM) is an artificial material. It has negative permittivity and negative permeability simultaneously and has attracted great attention these years. LHM has a lot of abnormal characteristics different from these conventional natural materials. This paper investigates a patch antenna based on I-shaped left-handed material by using the method of Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD). The results show that there exists a wave resonance state at 2.96 GHz, where the real part of the permittivity and permeability are all negative; its refraction index is –1. The effect has largely enhanced the electromagnetic wave’s resonance intensity, and has improved the localized extent of electromagnetic energy obviously in such LHM structure, resulting in a higher antenna gain, a lower return loss, a wider bandwidth and a better improvement of the antenna’s characteristics. Due to these advantages, the application of patch antennas can be extended to the fields such as mobile communication, satellite communication, aviation, etc.