Investigation of reflection area on strategic reflectarray resonant elements

Selection of strategic resonant elements plays an effective role in enhancing the reflectivity performance of reflectarrays. This paper presents a systematic analysis of various potential reflectarray resonant elements for operation at X-band (8-12GHz) frequency range. The considerations mainly focus on the exploitation of reflection area for an accurate characterization of reflection loss and reflection phase performance. Furthermore, two patch unit cells have been fabricated for each configuration by mounting on the top of the Rogers RT/Duroid 5870 dielectric substrate. The scattering parameter measurements of the fabricated unit cells have also been carried out using vector network analyzer based on waveguide simulator technique. Measured results demonstrated that reduction in reflection area of resonant elements from 105.74mm² to 7.33mm² tends to increase the reflection loss values from 2.63dB to 20.25dB. Moreover the reduction in phase errors offering an increased measured static phase range of 290° is also shown by employing triangular loop element.