Properties of Narrow Metal Reflectors Used in Reflective Array Compressors and Surface Acoustic Wave Tags

Narrow open-circuited aluminum electrodes with metal ratio on the order of 0.2 can provide controllable weak reflectivity necessary for many applications such as reflective array compressors (RAC) and surface acoustic wave (SAW) tags. Etched grooves used in RACs can thus be replaced with metal strips. We determine the main parameters of such narrow electrodes using FEM-BEM simulations and experiments. We show that a weak reflectivity of 0.3% per wavelength can easily be achieved and controlled by varying the electrode width. We also demonstrate the use of narrow electrodes in an inline dispersive delay line (DDL).