Bulk-glass ceramic based stacked dielectric resonator antenna as phased array element

Stacked dielectric resonator antenna from high-k low loss bulk-glass ceramic material have been investigated. Two resonators are stacked with an air gap which has been realized with a low loss foam material. The antenna showed a wide bandwidth with the dimension of 7.7×6.7×2.5mm for the lower dielectric resonator and 8.7×7.7×3.3mm for the upper dielectric resonator. Thus the maximum dimension is 0.23 λ0×0.20 λ0 at 8GHz which is very compact. This makes it very appropriate for array applications to reduce the direct mutual coupling through near-field. The antenna has been manufactured and characterized. For the fabricated antenna the -10 dB impedance bandwidth is 20% and operating frequency from 7.4 to 9GHz. The measured gain at 8GHz is 7.23 dB.