Design of a reflectarray element integrated in a Solar Cell panel

This paper addresses the integration of a reflectarray antenna (RA) on a thin film Solar Cell (SC) panel, as a mean to save real estate and cost in platforms such as satellites. The challenge is to design a good reflectarray cell in terms of phase and bandwidth, while simultaneously achieving high optical transparency and low microwave reflection loss, so as to preserve good SC and RA energy efficiencies, respectively. Since there is a tradeoff between the transparency and surface conductivity of a conductor, the choice of the conductive material to be used for the RA cell is an important design variable, in addition to all geometrical parameters optimized. The results obtained demonstrate the feasibility of an integrated RA on SC, preserving for the first time both SC and microwave performances. For instance, microwave loss of 1.15 dB and optical transparency of 92% using a TCO transparent conductor.