On the Radiation Characteristics of Right- and Left-Handed Microstrip Patch Antenna Designs

Theoretical left-handed materials have been shown to reduce the size of a resonant microstrip antenna while maintaining or increasing impedance bandwidth. This work discusses the implications of the left-handed materials on the radiation characteristics of such structures. The source fields and radiation characteristics of left- and right-handed microstrip patch antenna designs are studied theoretically and investigated further using equivalence theory and an approximate radiating slot model. The work indicates that the antenna miniaturization enabled by the use of left-handed materials results in an electrically small antenna with an omnidirectional rather than a broadside radiation pattern when operated in the first resonant mode